ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1894, 9 March 1888, Page 35

ART AND ARTISTS.

4 young art student at Paris, who calls himself Oscarson, is no other than Prince Oscar, second son of the King of Sweden.

At the recent lottery connected with the art exhibition in Prague, Emperor William .yon the i'uic oil painting, " Ulysses on the ClilT," by the Munich artist Michael Hauptmann.

Ci eza Mezoly, one of the best Hungarian landscape painters, and named in the same rank with Munkacsy and Benczur, died recently at Pesth in the d'ith year of his age.

Munkacsy's now picture, "The Song," represents a young girl playing on a mandolin in the shadow of a room, and singing to her grandmother, who is seated at the window in full sunlight.

A magnificent stained-glass window in memory of Milton will soon be placed in St. Margaret's, Westminster, by G. W. Childs. The inscription has been written for the window by the poet Whitticr.

In the cemetery at Menosha, Ohio, is a tombstone of 1G tons, cut in the form of a tree, with birds and squirrels lodged in its branches, and ferns, flowers, an open book, and scroll of music at the base.

Mr J. C. Horsley, R.A., has delivered his soul about the Government School of Art at South Kensington. He thinks it has gone altogether to the bad of late years. "It is now," he says, "a place of perfunctory artteaching for the delectation of shoals of female amateurs, and the turning out of cartloads of most mediocre artists of both sexes, who flood the country and public exhibitions with worthless productions."

Mr Holman Hunt, the painter of the " Flight into Egypt," has been elevated from the lower to the upper rank of members in the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours. " For years," says the World, " his position in art has been overlooked by the society when raising associates (of inferior calibre to himself) into full membership, and the slight was becoming discreditable to the body. It is as much to the honour of the society as to Mr Holman Hunt that he is at length fully elected."

The statue by Havard Thomas of the late Mr Samuel Morley has just been unveiled with great ceremony at Bristol. The Western Daily Press in a recent issue gives the drawings of the statue, and says, "as a portrait, the work has been admirably done." The statue is thoroughly unconventional, and shows Mr Morley in modern everyday costume, and in the attitude he generally assumed when addressing a meeting. It is a splendid work of art, in its simplicity and strength. The Daily Press gives an interesting little biography of Havard Thomas, who is a native of Bristol and an honour to the city.

Pre-Raphaelitism has but one principle, that of absolute uncompromising truth in all that it does, obtained by working everything, down to the most minnte detail, from nature, and from nature only ; or, where imagination is necessarily trusted to, always endeavouring to conceive a fact as it really was likely to have happened. Every PreRaphaelite landscape background is painted, to the last touch, in the open air, from the thing itself. Every Pre-Raphaelite figure, however studied in expression, is a true portrait of some living person. Every minute accessory is painted in the same manner. This is the main Pre-Raphaelite principle. — Ruskin. A new artist has suddenly become the fashion in London. This is Aubery Hunt, who has an exhibition of some 30 or 40 pictures at the Goupil Gallery in Bond street. Mr Hunt has exhibited at the Academy and the British Artists, but up till now has attraoted no attention whatever. The present collection, however, seems to have placed him, all at once, in the very front rank of contemporary painters. It is neither, so trustworthy opinion declares, 'academical, mediocre, or commonplace. On the other hand his handling is said to be of very high quality— to be easy and elegant, his colour harmonious, and his work to have always atmosphere and weather. Moreover, he is a skilful draughtsman, and has s special command over the figure. Will Mr Hunt succeed in following up the success he has made by this, his first exhibition ?

—The Duke of Beaufort appears to have in his gift 24 livings ; the Duke of Bedford, 25 ; the Duke of Devonshire, 38 ; and the Duke of Eutland, 25—112 livings in the hands of four dukes. More than 200 peers present to about 1300 livings, including 9 belonging to the Duke of Marlborough, 11 to the Marquis of Aylesbury, and 43 to the Earl of Lonsdale.

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