ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2451, 6 March 1901, Page 64

ART AND ARTISTS.

Mr Alfred Gilbert, R A., who has been 'elected Professor of Sculpture at the Royal Academy, is now in his forty-sixth year. A pupil of the late Sir Edgar Boehm, he also studied in Paris and Italy. He lived for yeara in Rome, where Mr Marion Crawford was one of his intimate friends. As the result of ten years' residence abroad he speak 3 French as fluently as English. The work by which Mr Gilbert is bes>t known in London is, of course, the Shaftesbury Memorial Fouqj tain at Piccadilly Circus. An even more ambitious work is the memorial to the" late Duke of Clarence in the Albert Chapel at Windsor. He used to occupy a studio next door to that of Sir Edgar Boehm in the Fulham road, but he must now be sought in Maida Vale. He has been R.A. eight years.

In "The Life of Paris," newly issued by Mr Murray, the chapter on Art includes these references to the great French artist, Meissonier: — "The French are not only ready to admire a great artist, but they are exceedingly proud to take service in his corps. Perhaps the crowning achievement of the career of Meissonier was his instalment as Mayor of Poissy, his country place, a few miles from. Paris. It signified the full and perfect acceptance of him by the ratepayer. So, while Paris was at his feet, you might find him, in the intervals of homage, at the beck and call of this humble commune, labouring in its little council, and fighting the good fight of local self-government on the question of a new footpath or of a new lamp. He went from the council board to his fine chateau, and from there to his finer mansion by the Avenue de Villiers, twin splendours that were well-nigh the ruin of him. The last was a veritable palace of art. He designed it himself, or, at any rate, he drew every detail of the wood-carving, and you went from floor to floor by a staircase of the Italian Renaissance, until you found the little man and the little picture in the recesses of the shrine. Art was his industry, and he devoted its rewards to ambitions worthy of the king of an oil trust. He earned by tens of thousands, and spent by hundreds of thousands, and he ended" his life ap a hostage in the hands of the dealers, painting masterpiece after masterpiece to liquidate their claims, with only a bare percentage for his own share. The very colourman once struck for a payment on account.