"QUEST FOR BEAUTY"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22580, 19 November 1936, Page 4

"QUEST FOR BEAUTY"

NEW ZEALAND ARTIST HON. MRS. RALPH VANE'S VISIT Well known in the Dominion both as a Mew Zealander and as an artist, the Hon. Alls. Ralph Vane arrived at Auckland yesterday morning by the Rangitata from London on a six months' visit to the Dominion. She is travelling with Mr. Lamorna Birch, R.A., and Mrs. Birch on a painting tour. Mrs. Vane, or R. Airini Vane, as she is known from her work, last visited New Zealand two years ago. Since then she has spent six months in South Africa. Mrs. Vane expects to spend about four days in Auckland before leaving for Mahurangi. In the past five years Mrs. Vane has travelled extensively on what she herself terms her "quest for beauty," and she has enriched her collection with n number of scenes from different countries in various mediums. America, Italy, Switzerland, Morocco, Spain, the South Sea Islands, Britain, Egypt, France, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are all characteristically pictured in Mrs. Vane's collection.

Mrs. Vane did' not consider that travel was essential to art or to an artist. Constable, for instance, had made his quest for beauty mainly in England. She herself travelled in search of the beauty of other lands and in order to show that beauty to others. She had found striking atmospheric and lighting effects in Egypt, magnificent scenery in the sunlight of South Africa, poetry in the English landscape, and rugged grandeur in New Zealand, while the changeful moods of the Mediterranean sea coast provided ample opportunity for colour effect such as she had ruptured best, she thought, iu the Arab study, "Field of the Cloth of Gold" and in "Italian Fishing Boats at 'funis." "Hack, Chop and Burn"

Mrs. Vane said that in lior opinion an artist was never of! duty. 1 lio search for beauty ami tho translation of that hoauty continued always. "There is no .standing still in art. You are always studying and always learning, and must always be finding something new, even in familiar scenes and methods, because nature is so inexhaustible." Although .Mrs. Vane paints a great deal in oils and water colours, she said one of her favourite mediums was the long-tor-gotten "tempera'' used by tho early Italian and Dutch masters. Born in New Zealand. Mrs. Vane has retained a great love of her native land and said that Now Zealand was particularly fortunate in its rich heritage of beauty. The light and colour of landscapes made a special appeal to her and in this respect New Zealand and South Africa had much to offer. She felt particularly strongly about the preservation of native flora and urged that native trees and shrubs should be planted and cared for as much as possible. She did not like to see exotic trees planted at the expense of a country's native flora, and thought the New Zealander, as an individual, was ruthless in the destruction of beauty. Some of the most wonderful forests 111 the world were gradually being destroyed for roads and cut into sections for small homes whose owners cut away what was left of tho bush and planted in its stead a few pino trees. "Hack, chop and burn" was the description which Mrs. Vane had once heard of the New Zealand attitude to bfauty. Attractiveness of Dutch Homes During her stay in South Africa Mrs. Vane made many studies of the scenery, and particularly of the Dutch homes, which she enjoyed painting. The arclutorture of tho houses and their decoration was extremely beautiful and they were perfectly in keeping with their surroundings. '1 ho Dutch were very fond of their homes and she wished that people in other countries took the same pride in designing their houses to blend with their surroundings. . During her stay in South Africa Mrs. Vane held an exhibition of pictures at the Darter Art Gallery, which was opened by Sir AVilliain Clark, the British High Commissioner. Mrs. Vane has also exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Hoval Institute of l'ainters in water colours, the Paris Salon, the Royal British Artists' Exhibition, the Society of Women Artists and all the larger provincial galleries. Recently she attended an exhibition of potraits at the Walker galleries in London of | another New Zealand woman artist, Mrs. Elizabeth Kelly, whose work made a very favourable impression. One" of the most important aspects of painting, if not the most important, was drawing, although in some cases the colour effect was so well done that the drawing did not seem to matter, said Mrs. Vane. Artists were people specially trained to beauty, and their pictures served to point out to other people a beauty that they perhaps had never really noticed in a familiar scene. Very often an artist saw colour and saw beauty where others did not seek it. Great Impressionists Admired The so-called modern art had done a great deal for art, Mrs. Vane considered. It was, after all, necessary to have an art expressive of the ace. There was a great deal of nonsense talked about modern art which actually was not so very modern. Many of the first impressionists were now old masters. Impressionist painting arose from the artist's desire to abstract from a scene and a subject that which he first saw, or to present that scene or subject as he first saw it. Abstraction in art had done a great deal toward pointing out to people a beauty of which they had hitherto not known. Some of the modern artists really employed -what were known as "shock tactics." She did not admire the poseur, or the artist wVio employed distortion and caricature, but much of the modern art was really clever and intelligent. Mrs. Vane considered that what she termed "art speculation" had given rise to much of the criticism of modern art. A great number of pictures that were really worthless had found a market merely because dealers, remembering the first impressionists whoso work had become valuable and famous, bought them in the hopes that they might be valuable in the future. Character in Trees An ardent admirer of such impressionists as van Gogh, Gauguin, Degas, Turner and Monet, Airs. Vane possesses a number of postcard reproductions of their best work. She considered that in the richness of his colours, van Gogh was particularly outstanding, and his work, although it might startle at first, never became tiring or nauseating as many pictures, perfect in design, drawing and colour, tended to do. In England, Mrs. Vane lives at Wentwortli Club, Virginia Water, Surrey, in a particularly delightful countryside, which sho has reproduced many times in water colour sketches. She said she particularly enjoyed painting trees, and in this respect the English countryside had always a great deal to offer and a great deal that was ever new. Trees, to her, had character and very often the character of their country. She thought that the New Zealand trees, particularly the rugged and colourful pohutukawa, were full of character and expressed the essential nature of New Zealand.