ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2055, 13 July 1893, Page 42

ART AND ARTISTS.

Ono sometimes wonders if the smaller exhibitions of paintings pay, bat when we are assured that the Meissonier one held for 16 days at Messrs Tooth's realised a profit of £1500— being visited by 15,000 persons— the prospects of others Btem brighter. The chief fashionable event in Paris dur> ing the past few weeks was an exhibition of Meissonier's works. At the opening the entrance fee was fixed at £1 and the attendance was select. The collection numbered 1398 pictures, drawing?, etchings, engravings, and sketches. After the fashionabb world was satisfied, the exhibition was thrown open to the general public. Sir John Millais became a pupil in an artist's studio at ths early Bge of 10, and before he was of age had carriel off all possible honours from the Royal Acidemy schools. Fame came as the result of painting the portrait of his wife (the " -Portrait of a Lady '), exhibited in the same year as his marriage, which took place in 1855. John Leecb, the aitist, in many of his sketches employed as a signature the humorous device of an apothecary's bottle containing a leech. "Alfred Crowquill" was Alfred Henry Forrester in his literary and artistic productions. "Phiz" was Hablot Knight Browne. Richard Doyle used a monogram oE hia initials, which was often surrounded by a comical little bird—" Dicky " Doyle, as he was called by his a&sociates. Thackeray's signature tor his sketches was a pair of spectacles. Sir John Millais was one of the few infant prodigies who have, after all, achieved something in their later life. As a child of five, when, staying with his mother in Brittany, his rough sketches of the French garrison at Dinan were pronounced marvellous, and when he gained his first medal of the Society of Arts he was scarcely more than a boy. He became tha youngest Associate of the Royal Academy at the age of 21, and the yourjgest Academician on record at the age of 26. EAELY ADVEESE CBITICIBM OP THE VENUS

DE MEDECI.

Smollett 125 years ago declined to be taken in by the statue. Writing from Nice on February 5, 1765, about a visit to Florence, he says: "With respect to the faarKin Venus Pontia, commonly called Da Medicis, which was found at Tivdi and is fr-pt ia a separate apartment called the Tribuna, I believe I ought to be entirely silent, or at least conceal my real sentiments, which will otherwise appear equally absurd and presumptuous. It must be want of taste which prevents ray feeling that enthusiastic admiration with which others are inspire 1 at sight of this statue. ... I cannot help thinking that there is no beauty in the features of Venue, and that the attitude is awkward and out of character." — London News.

MILLAIS'S " OPHELIA."

Sir John Millais's "Ophelia" ia a canvas of the very first importance. It is * a work painted according to the strictest tenets of th 9 Pre-Raphaelite creed, and it delights the beholder of to-day as much as it surprised the Parisians, when, in 1855, it was exhibited in the Avenue Montaigne. The face of " Ophelia " is that of Mrs Dints Gibrlel Ro36etti,,while she was yet Miss Sidrlall.

The background was painted on the River Ewel 1 , near KiDgstop. . Though the picture was painted in 1851, and exhibited at the R .yal Academy in the following year, the colours are still as brilliant as the day they were laid on. In 1866 Messrs Graves bought it for £798, and caused ittobeeDgravedfeyMrStephen^ eon,

From them it passed to Mrs Fuller-Mait-land, who lent it last year to the Guildhall Exhibition, and who parted with ie to Mr Tate for the sum, it is said, cf £3000.—Magazine of Art. MB MOBTIMEB MENPES IN FOREIGN LAND.

Mr Moi timer Menpes's 79 dainty little pictures of France, Spain, and Morccco at tbe Dowdeswell Galleries are as well worth seeing as anything in London just now. They are all very small, the\ largest scarcely covering a tquare foot, while the great majority are about Gin by 4in. But in the whole 79 .there is not one whicb is unworthy of the artist, while there are quite 50 which are masterpieces in' their way of delicate and' accurate painting. Many of the Moorish paintings have that calm mellowness of Colouring which one rarely meets except in the works of tbe old Dutch masters.

Mr Menpes is particularly fond of a bright bit of colour, and most of the subjects seem to have been selected because they per.mitted him to indulge tbi3 liking to the full. Mr Menpes has not painted the fmposing side of Spanish and Moorish life, such as tbe mosques and towers and churches and big buildings, but he gives us little glimpses of the life and surroundings of the common people: In other words, he has vibited those countries as an artist, and not as a tourist. Even the squalid and dirty street life of Spain and Morocco is rendered pictnresque by tbe multi-coloured dress of the inhabitants, and the gay tints with which the houses are daubed, and Mr Menpes hag turned these opportunities to (he best account. The result is a beautiful collection of little gems of art, .which in every case are worth a good deal more than a passing glance.