NEW ZEALAND SCENERY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 3247, 3 July 1872, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND SCENERY.

(Melbourne Daily Tefegraplt.)

The exhibition of the "Victorian Academy of Arts in Collins street has lately given place to an exhibition of a aeries of water colour drawings of New Zealand sceneryjby Mr W. H. ifaworth, who for five years has been working in Canterbury and. Nelson. A private view has been afforded to a few of the initiated, and the result of this is a conviction that the artist has done justice to a subject capable of being most successfully treated. The beauty — eccentric beauty,, perhaps, but still beauty —of New Zealand scenery in proverbial, and some of our beat artiste have selected their subjects from different portions of that country. So far as Mr Haworth himself is conceracu the subjects have been selected with great care and taste, and though there arc in some of the pictures faults which the artistic eye would easily detect, the whole collection merits approval. There is a Turneresquo touch about some of them, and although it would not bo correct to say that any one picture is distinguished by any sterling originality, all a*o marked by delicacy of touch and fidelity of general treatment. In one of these pictures—" Lake Tennyson during a Storm' —a fine effect is produced by the rays of the sun piercing m through a rift; and in the pictures, " Mount Cook, as seen from the Tasman Glacier," and "The Glacier of Mount Una," there is considerable merit. Most of the critics who have as yet seen these pictures speak very highly of the " Waterfall near hake Taylor, in Canterbury,'* but. though it is a picture one cannot refrain from lingering over, a casual observer feels more inclined to give the palm, so far as quiet beauty is concerned, to " A Sunset Scene in the Summer Season." There are three beautiful views of Lake (Juyon, one of Mount Taurus, another of Maori Gully, en the Harrison river, and a really beautiful drawing of the " Spencer Range at Sunset." A view in the Ash burton gorge has alsoattracted considerable attention, and much approval has also been expressed of a view on Lake Pukikai. Writing of the whole collection, after a preliminary and not very close inspection, one cannot but admit that Mr Haworth has placed a very acceptable offering on the BnrJ3ie of Australian art, and deserves encouragement accordingly. Patrons of art in all its forms cannot do better than inspect these pictures with a view to the increase of then- own collections. There are over 100 pictures to select from, and there is scarcely one without considerable merit.