ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2299, 24 March 1898, Page 53

ART AND ARTISTS.

• . • The origin of the art of Leighton was, says the Spectator, essentially Italian and Greek.

• . • Mr Hubert Harkomer, ifc is said, aspires, like Michael Angelo, to do everything. He paints in oil and water, etches, writes plays, composes music, is stage machinist as well as scene painter, carves, and is an architect. For all the varieties of his artistic work separate rooms are arranged and fitted up to serve the special purpose for which they are designed.

• . • There is also a story about Professor Herkomer that tella how the famous painter in his early days sat down on a Beat in St. James's Park wondering where the next meal was to come from. At the other end of the seat dropped a fellow -sufferer. The two spoke, and they exchanged life stories. Then they parted, and when they met again 20 years afterwards both were celebrated men. The professor declines to say who the other fellow was, but we have, says a Home paper, an idea it was Onslow Ford, the sculptor. ■ • • Now that so many women are receiving a thorough education in art matters, and when the cry of the picture painter is ever "No sale 1 no sale I " why should not women nod a footing in the other tiades in a like capacity 7 In lithography, weaving (brocades, cretonnes, &c), wall-paper making, and a thousand other snheres there is ample

I room for clever and original designing. In ( such bnanches of lithography as poster work clever designing is almost at a premium. Is it not high time that uc successful artists lefc off paintiDg pictures which nobody wants to buy and, with the aid of a little technical training, set to work in those directions where their work (provided it is J good woik) is wanted and will bring them a fair remunertvtioia ? • . • Muakacay's graat picture, " Eoce ] Homo," the latest and most ambitious of I his masterpieces, is in a great measure the cause of the incurable mental disease from whick he now suffers. B> broke down under the strain of the work. Hi*! wife lately told a friend that the great painter forgot avery- | thing else in bis de&ire to finish the picture and to make it worthy of his fame. He neglected the simplest and the most im- | perative rules of health. He had no regular [ Kneels. Hy almost lived in the studio, and I rarely had a breath of fresh air. The mental strain was there fore, in its more immediate origin, a physical one, and his system had no power of assistance. The artist was deaf to all remonstrance, and ha .worked on under | these conditions until he had finished the i work. Bat one thing remained — to paint ! his signature at the foot of it. Ha had justj ust i finished the signature when he fell prostrate, and from that moment he has never recovered the use of bis faculties. Deab, Sib, — Please iof rm your readers that I have bern cured of Debility by a simple and inexpensive remerJy, and <vill be pleased to send the means of cure to all sufferer?. I do th's c-ntirely cue of gratitude aid make no charge whatever. Bend addressed envelope to Mr WILBUR KELLOGG, Box 344, Melbourne, Victoria. — B.i D ductioc — Jinks : " Winks married a woman of intellect, didn't he 1 " Blinks : " I don't know. Why 1 " Jinks : " I Eof( c he never has any buttons on bis clothes." — When He Flinched. — " Yes," said the retired military officer, " I can recall two occasions when I was terribly frightened." "Ob 1 " exclaimed the romaatic young lady, >c do tell me about them. I suppose it happened when you were fighting in India." "No," he replied; "one time was when I was married and thi other time was when we bad our baby christened."