ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1952, 23 July 1891, Page 41

ART AND ARTISTS.

The youngesj lady artist who has ever had a picture accepted for the Royal Academy is Miss Latimer, of Leeson Park, Dublin, who is now only 16 year 3of age. She shows remarkable artistic talent, and is understood to have studied in Dusseldorf.

On all sides we hear (says Mr. AshbySterry in the London Graphic) of times being bad for art, the difficulty of selling pictures, and the inferior prices obtained by artists for their work. And yet art galleries are increasing to an alarming extent. A new gallery occurs even oftener than a new theatre, and a fresh picture show is as frequent as the much-maligned matinee. The Royal Academy, London, has been opened to the public, and although there are as usual some pictures which would have been better left out, there are very many really important works. There can be little doubt that the picture of the year is " The Doctor," by Luke Fildes. It if full of feeling and power. A sick child is lying in a humble room, on a bed made up on two chairs, and is evidently dying. - The heartbroken mother, whose face is buried in her folded arms, and the pale, despairing look of the father contrast powerfully with the strong, healthy, and intelligent face of " the Doctor." The professional stolidity, overcome by kindly feeling and sympathy, are marvellously depicted as he sits with his head resting on his hand watching the poor sufferer.

Speaking of private views, I do not think (says Figaro's critic) I ever assisted at a more crowded one than was held at Dowdeswell's Galleries in Bond street recently when Mr Mortimer Menpes' " impressions "of India Burmah, and Cashmere were first exhibited. Mr Menpes has again scored a great success. Nearly all of his pictures seem to have been sold already; but visitors will flock to see them all the same, for he is very much the fashion just now. The show has been arranged, too/ln just the way to attract people, who will find much to shatter about in the art hangings and draperies and remarkable frames Mr Menpes has designed. He is, in short, not only a facile and clever artist, but he is also an excellent showman, so that his success is assured. .

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is now the leading gallery of, art in the United States, and in some of its departments is superior even to the European museums. There is scarcely a sale of an art collection in New York that the Metropolitan Museum is not enriched thereby in some substantial manner. It has, of course, no such collection of paintings as adorn the walls of the Louvre the, Royal Gallery in London, and similar institutions in other European cities, but it owns a number of very valuable examples of the old masters and of the modern schools, and the collection is steadily grofwing in size and quality. DECLINE OF MODERN ITALIAN PAINTING.

It is strange that in a country like Italy, which for many years was recognised as the centre' of all that is artistic and beautiful in the world, art should have so degenerated. Among modern Italian paintings we see only crudely sensational or " catchy " taking works, with here and there a pretty landscape, or passably good "genre" subject, never a grand religious, or even historical picture. But; there are reasons for this which cannot be explained here, In the fifteenth century art in Italy advanced toward perfection. The popes ordered works of architecture, sculpture, and painting with a lavish hand and the noble princes of all houses, and especially Lorenzo the Magnificent, carried on a noble strife of emulation of art matters with the popes. Art was then cultivated with so much passion, and admired with such sincere enthusiasm, that it was employed in everything and eacouraged by everyone. There wag a great demand everywhere for works of high art, and at the beginning of the sixteenth century art in all its branches had attained in Italy the highest possible degree of perfection. Since then art has degenerated to a great degree. There is little local demand for pictures in Italy. The Government does not purchase any to speak of, nor give subventions of any kind (as in Prance) to art. The Pope does not follow in the footsteps of his "predecessors in this respect, and the nobles are nearly all too poor to gratify any taste that they may have for art.— Florence Correspondent Boston Journal.

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