ART IN AUSTRALIA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 7538, 15 April 1886, Page 4

ART IN AUSTRALIA.

Cassell's Magazine of Art for the month of February contains an article on "Art in Australia" from the pen of the well-known artist and antiquarian the Rev. W. J. Loftie, who, it will be remembered, paid a short visit some months ago to South Australia and Victoria. Blr Lottie, in the course of some very interesting remarks, says:—"The daylight in Australia is, to anyone accustomed to London, a feature of the country in itself. Except in Nubia, I never saw such brilliant illumination. Colours and tints are visible there which are invisible here. Even the nights are not so dark as here, and the stars throw strong reflections when there is no moon. So, too, the distance is not bounded, as here, by mistiness, but only, as in Egypt, by the rotundity' of the earth. From a high hill the view is marvellously extensive, because marvellously clear. At the same time there is a great want of natural colour, owing partly to the dryness, which leaves very little blue in the distance, and partly to the greyness of the foliage and brownness of the grass. In botanical gardens and in a few other places after recent rain we find the same kind of verdure as here, but in small quantities. The fronts of houses in Adelaide are often—indeed usually, except in the business streets—covered with climbing plants of great beauty, and there are evergreen firs and a large-leaved tree like a very formal laurel, which ii universally called "The Ficas," planted along the street. In short, there is r~: v:ice everywhere that the colonists are awaiu both of the intensity of the daylight and the drabness of the landscape; they have a deep interest in art aud in all the variety and pleasure which art in such conditions would afford to them. The architecture sur- . prised me. It seemed as if the Australians ! had recognised that as building jg costly, for want of good stone and on account of' the high price of skilled labour, it had better be done well, if done at all. Seeing, then, that the exteriors were so good, and knowing as I did what fabulous sums had been spent on pictures for the public galleries, the disappointment I felt when I entered was keen, The purchases

had been ignorantly or mistakenly made. In Australia the rudiments of an art education have to be learned from third and fourth rate modern works—works which the student hears have been bought at high prices, and which he musfcpersuade himself to admire. . . These remarks are offered with the greatest diffidence. 1 should be extremely sorry if they gave offence to any of my'kind Australian I'rieuds. It is however, disappointing and depressing to see so much trouble and s» much money laid out on what will not help Australia to produce a single great artist, and, indeed, I may add, on what would not, if put up in a London auction room, fetch more than half what has been paid for it."