ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2105, 28 June 1894, Page 40

ART AND ARTISTS.

The early Egyptian paintings were employed as subordinate to sculpture, the statues being painted in life colours. The possession of a genuine Murillo, representing the deathbed of St. Joseph, is claimed by Dr John J. Caldwell, of Baltimore. It is said to have been painted in 1010 tor one of the churohes of Cadiz.

The Royal Scottish Water Colours Society has decided to admit women to the same privileges as are afforded to men, and henceforth lady members will be qualified to hold office and be mambers of the council.

In a new restaurant in Munich (writes a Berlin correspondent in an English paper) the landlord thereof and an artist have been guilty of exeorable taste. The walls have been painted with different patriotic subjects, the chief picture representing in a horribly realistic manner a death struggle between the deceased King Ludwig- and his physician, Dr V. Gudden. The scene is the bank of the Starnberger Lake, and the King is throttling the medico. The horrible picture is the talk of tbe city, and the painter, on discovering pablio opinion so against him, attempted to paint the picture over, but landlord and artist are being prosecuted by a justly indignant people on the ground of nublic scandal and offence.

Mr Aubrey Beardsley, the new London illustrator, though not much more than 20 years of age, has had many rebnffs before entering the profession of hia choice. Hebegan life as an illustrator, but was subsequently bound down to an office desk, for which he had but little taste. At last he determined to make one more uold bid for artistic repute, with the result that within a few months his originality has been widely recognised. Wuose head Herod would bave had off next had he lived to peruse Mr Oscar Wilde's " Salome," with Mr Beardsley's designs, may be a matter of curious speculation ; or what King. Mark and Tristam would have done about the " heale Isoude " portrayed in Mr Beardsley's illustrations to Messrs Dent's edition of the "Morte ©'Arthur." But these singularly clever (and cleverly Bingular) designs are treasures to possess. Mr Beardsley is art editor of the new quarterly, the Yellow Book.

Madame Carpßaux,' the widow of the great French sculptor, is going to exhibit tbe works ineditaoi her husband,' who died 17 yeara ago. E very body has heard of thegroup of the " Dance " which decorates the principal fagade of the Grand Opera, and which a criminal— some say a prudish— hand Btained one night by throwing against it a bottle of ink. The modest residence at Auteuil where Carpeaux died, and which is still occupied by his widow, is actually crammed with curious little commencements, among which are two or three sketches which he made with his forefinger dipped in ink ; one of them representing three men drinking being simply exquisite. Oarpeanx was a great favourite of the Empress Eugenic, who called him to Chislehurst directly after the death of her husband, wishing him to mould the head of Napoleon 111. He remained a fortnight with the widow of his sovereign, and it was touching to sse the tenderness of the rustic, and even rude, artist for the afflicted lady whom he had seen at Compiegne, shining like a superb star amid the most brilliant court.

— Tibbs has no clock in his bedroom, and never takes his watch to. bed, but he says he always knows when to rise by the crowing of his neighbour's cock— he calls it his crownometer J

— An aoronaut says that there is the same difference in the air at the earth's surface and at an altitude of half a mile, that there is between water in a muddy puddle and the purest spring water. He states that for a time ono feels, after coming down from an ascent, as if one were breathing " solid dust." — Thex'e is a curious custom prevalent among the medicos of the Celestial .Empire, Every night the Chinese doctor is expected to place outside his house a number of lighted lanterns, symbolising the number of his patients who have died during the year. And by December most of the physicians have quite an illumination outside their doors.