ART AT THE EXHIBITION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19692, 20 January 1926, Page 4

ART AT THE EXHIBITION.

THE ART GALLERY. . x. In dealing' with the painting of landscape mention was made of the work of three of the foremost "schools)" as represented by Amesley Brown, D. P. Cameron, and Lamorna Birch. There* is another school of painters which has come into prominence recently, whose work is of a different- typo altogether. It is landscape painting, but not viewed from the same standpoint, that is, the representation of English scenery as it actually exists, but as it might be adapted for theatrical purposes. The Art of the Stage has, during recent years, become one of the Fine Arts. The painting of scenery is no longer the job of the cheap-jack who produced canvases by the square-yard, which could be used equally well for Shakespeare, problem jplays, or musical comedy. It is now the work of artists who enter into the spirit of the pay for which they are providing the setting, and design their scenery accordingly. In order to do this, an artist must realise the dramatio possibilities of landscape. This is seen to a certain extent in Lamorna Birch's work; but, as was suggested before, it is easy enough for anyone with a little imagination to conjure "P the people that belong to the picture, or one can leave his pictures as they arebeautiful paintings •of real places. But if one looks at the picture by Tom Mostyn No. 3, Room B, "The Garden of Peace" —one feels that here is a real stage setting. Where, however, are the actors? There is a sense of expectation about the picture, us if one only had to wait a moment for some romantic figures to appear, with a burst of ■music, and because they don t, one leaves the picture with a glight feeling of disappointment. In spite of his fine dramatic feeling and the excellence of his design and painting, Mostyn's work nearly always suffers from this lack of the necessary figures. An artist whose work does m suffer in this way, and is also finer in other respects, is Phillip Connard, who, unfortunately, is not represented in this collection. But many will have seen reproductions of his recent "Kensington Gardens," whioh, besides being easily recognisable, possessses just that something more which is necessary to dramatic effect. In Room B there is another picture—No. 19, "Corfu," by W. G. D<» Glehn—which is also distinctly suggestive of the stage, but is, perhaps, almost too '"stagey" to be really romantic or dramatic. The same also applies to No. 24, Room C, "La M&rtola," by H. A. Olivier. Although neither of these is English they seem very well to illustrate the type of work referred to which may be described as "theatrical.''

There are many examples In < the gallery of the older school of English landscape painters, of which Leader Tas the type. The early landscape painteTß, from the time of Cotman, realised ai*d painted tlio solidiicss and breadth of English scenery. But,, besides its breadth, English scenery possesses a great wealth of small and very beautiful detail. It «m rnty natural that artists should begin to pay attention to this detail, and so a. few years later than. Constable we find Birk*?t Foster painting pictures in which ev-jry blade of grass, every petal; and every twig were faithfully -put in. Birket Foster preserved in bis work a certain amount of dignity, but his followers very rarely did. In Room E is a picture, No. 59, 'The Truants," by E. Fortescue Brickdale, in »vhich the artist has seen only the smallness of the subject and has wasted rruoh precious time and labour on detail which would have been better left out. He hau failed' to see the bigger possibilities of the type of subject. Thia attention to detail, which commenced with water-colours, spread to oil painting as well. As an example of a. picture where the artist has sacrificed breadth to detail, ono should look at No. 3, Room A, "Bluebells." An English wood in the spring, with its carpet of blue, and .golden sunlight filtering through tho trees, is one of the most beautiful things in the world. Btit the artist has been so anxious to split up his carpet into its tiny component parts (by means of a tricky method of applying his paint), and to show every branch and knot in the trees that he has lost all the dignity and mystery and much of tho charm which one knows should be in such a subject. The picture certainly has a groat deal of charm, but it is considerably discounted by the liighting, as if it were an artificial light concoaled behind the nearest tree, having the effect of stunting the trees. Ono would like to see the same subject dealt with by Lamorna Birch, with his cool greys and mauves and emerald greens, and feeling for composition and arrangement. Combined with this attention to detail, it became a practice with certain painters) to smooth and soften their work (perhaps with the idea of making it extra pretty !) until they lost the fine, rich character of English foliago. The foliage of Leader has been described as "coloured cottonwool," and not without, reason. A glance at No. 26, Boom A, "Where Peace Reigns," by SKr A. S. Cope, will show how a fine subject can completely lose its vigour by being softened and smoothed. The subject is not "pretty." It is strong and beautiful. So tho artist should have made a strong and beautiful painting, and not a smooth sugary one. Mention cannot be made individually of all the other landscapes in the collection, but this column would not be complete without a very special reference to one of them. It is a picture which has not attracted a great deal of attention, but that, perhaps, is because so few are acquainted with the subject— "Sunrise!" George Clausen has made an especial study of the effects of sunrise. Ho has also mad© a study of rural England, and in his "Midsummer Dawn" (No. 21, Room B) wo see the two combined. Everyone knows and quotes—or misquotes—Gray's "Elegy," and other similar poems. But few people are as familiar , with the (paintings of Clausen. And yet his pictures of rustic life and work are jutt as simple, and just as true and ,'.i«mely. Tlwre is uo other liviag

painter who can approach such subjects with the same poetic feeling and simplicity of purpose. Anyone who has actually seen a sunrise over the English fields will knowthat this picture is not just one particular incident, but it is a painted poem about English sunrises. The writer of poems always works under the disadvantage 1 hat his reader cannot absorb the poem all c.t once, but has to read it line by line. But the painter is not hampered in that way. When one looks at this picture, in the same moment that one sees the little clouds grow' pink in the sky and the wonderful greys and purple change to green in the foreground, one can also hear the great swelling chorus of birds, and smell the delicious scent of the dew-laden new mown hay. And if one cares to stay and think, something much deeper still can be found, The artist might have chosen an extensive landscape for tho sun to rise upon. Instead of that, our view is bounded by a hedge only a few yards away, and although one knows that a beautiful landscape lies beyond, one is not concerned with it, but only with the fact that presently the eun itself will appear behind that hedge, and it is this intimate feeling which makes the whole thing bigger and grander, because deep in the heart of ©very Englishman there is a feeling that the sun rises for him alone, from behind his own particular hedge. Some landscapes are photographic, some are dramatic, some romantic. Very few are really poetic, and Clausen's picture is a great example of those few.