ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2298, 17 March 1898, Page 48

ART AND ARTISTS.

I .• . Millais'e mind at bottom was ttv>b of j the average man. His astouadiDg powers both of seeing and of painting did net prevent him sympathising with things which more deeply artistic natures reject. — Spectator. • . • Paderewski was formerly a great consumer of sweetmeats, but when this amiable weakness became known to his admirers he received such overwhelming supplies of bonbons, and so on, that the liking for confectionery quite lefthim. •.• The usual way in which Madams Henrietta Roncer, the famous cat painter, I works is by placicg a cat in a glas3 case made for the purpose, with cushions which? i invite the animsl to assume a natural posii tion. What is more remarkable is the fact fcbat one never sees a cat in her bouse. Wibenevcr v Madame Roaner wants to paint one she has a model brought to her. • . • Keene represents Northern art, and by this wo mean" that he was not- attracted by statuesque proportion, monumental compos!-. . I tion, and rhj thmical balance, the attribute's of I Italian arr. His sympathies- were with a ! style which saw deeplylnto" the details of the characters -of the men and women he drew. He was a realist, but not one whose realism goes no further than the shell seen by the camera. His realism consisted in seizing the elemental facts and characteristics of the people whom he drew, and these by his unspproacbed skill he set upon the paper, — Spectator. AN APPRECIATION OF LEIGHTOtf. There is a big picture of " Cimabue," one of his works in procession, by a new man living abroad named Leigh ton — a huge thing which the Queen has bought, which every one talk 3 of. The R.A.s have been gasping for years for some one to back against Hunt and Millais, and here they ha7e him ; a fact which makes some people do the picture injustice in return. It was very uninteresting to mo at first sight, but, on looking more at it, I think there is great richness of arrangement — a quality which, when really existing, as it does in the best old masters, and perhaps hitherto in no living man, at any rate English, ranks among the great qualities. But I am not quite sure yet either of this or of the faculty tor colour, which I suspect exists very strongly, but is certainly at present under a thick veil of paint, owing, I fancy, to too much continental sfudy. As for purely intellectual qualities, expression, intention, &c, there is iittle as yet of them ; but I think that in art richness of arrangement is so nearly allied to these that where it exists (in an earnest man) " they will probably .supervene. However, the choice of the subject, though interesting in a certain way, leaves one quite in the dark'as to what faculty the man may have for representing incident or passionate emotion.— • Letter by D.tnte Rossetti of date 1853.

—"I thought you said you saw prosperous times ahead." — " Well, I thought I did, bub the heiress I had my eye on wouldn't; have me." — Patient (who has just had his eye operated upon): " Doctor, it seems to me lOgs is a high price to charge for that job. It didn't take you 10 seconds." Eminent; Oculist : "My dear friend, in learning to perform that operation in 10 seconds I have spoiled more than two bushels of such eyes as youre."

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