ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1942, 7 February 1889, Page 32

ART AND ARTISTS.

Two old portraits of George and Martha Washington were sold in Bos ion recently for 500dol. They belonged to the late Ben. Perley Poore, and were the first pictures of the Washingtons ever taken. #Rom Italy comes the intelligence that a Raphael has been stolen from the church of j St. Pietro, at Perugia. This, of course, refers to a copy from Raphael by Sassoferrato, in St. Pietro del Casinensi. Mr Phipps Jackson, a London art critic, is attacking the present system of pictureframing. Ho complains of the arbitrary surrounding of all pictures with a meaningless piece of gilt joinery, which only a sense of convention permits us to accept in silence. Bishop Vincent, of the American Methodist Church, has recently received from Lon- j don a fine life-sized oil-painting of John j Potter, LL.D., Bishop of Oxford, who ordained John Wesley deacon and priest, and who was afterwards made Archbishop of Canterbury. The portrait was painted by John Vanderbank in 1737. Among prodigies in the arts few have equalled Joseph Kleinhaus, a sculptor who died in 1853, having been blind from his fifth year. From carving and modelling as a pastime he took - to serious study, was helped by Prugg, and at the age of 12 carved a Christ the size of life. He entered the studio of Nissl, and soon became very famous. He is said to have turned out 400 Ohrists'. Just beforo his death he modelled a bust of the Emperor of Austria. Gustave Dore once declared that, between ! the years 1850 and 1870, he had earned nearly £300,000 with his pencil! A very considerable portion of this money came from England, whore his popularity was never for a moment in doubt. His magnum opus— the illustration to the Holy Bible—is now likely to be more popular than ever, as Messrs Cassell and Co. are about to republish it in halE-pehny weekly numbers, for the.benefit of juvenile and otherwise short purses.— j Pall Mall Gazette. J Miss Margaret Rose Smart, daughter.of the late Sir George Smart, organist of the j Chapels Royal in the early part of the century, has recently presented to the borough of Windsor an interesting royal picture. It is a portrait of the Duke of Sussex (son of | George III), painted for Sir George Smart j by Wybrow, in' oils, framed in oak, and of three-quarters length. The donor descrihes the duke as having been " a kind friend and patron" of her father, who died in 1867. The offer was accepted by the Corporation of Windsor, and the painting will find a suitable and appropriate resting-place near by her Majesty's famous ca3tle residence. Science and art are sisters, or rather, perhaps, they are like brother and sister. The mission of art is in some respects like that of woman, it is not theirs so much to do the hard toil and moil of the world as to surround it with a halo of beauty, to convert work into pleasure. In science we naturally expect progress, but in art the case is not so clear, and yet Sir Joshua Reynolds did not hesitate to express his conviction that "so much will painting improve, that the best we can now achieve will appear like the work of children." —Sir John Lubbock. The annual exhibition of the Photographic Society of Great Britain, which lately took place in London, did not bring forward any startling novelty either in the way of apparatus or process. But there was indicated by the pictures hung on the walls the wide acceptance by phof ographers of the comparatively new method of printing in salts of platinum instead of those of silver. Platinum gives a black toned picture with a dull surface, which is far more artistic than the brown and purple tones with shiny surface which is associated with silver-printing. The platinum has the further merit of absolute permanency, so that it takes away from the photographic image its old reproach of beina: apt to fade. A recent modification in the platinum process hasmadeits practice far more simple than it used to be, and this circumstance, coupled with the advantages just pointed out, will be sure to increase its votaries.

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