ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2527, 20 August 1902, Page 64

ART AND ARTISTS.

—Mr Edwin Austin Abbey, R.A.. the Amoru-an artist . is a singularly painstaking 1 and conscientious worker. In painting hia historical picture? he spends months and travels hundreds of miles in obtaining modols or verifying the details of his work, so that everything — armour, costumes, and so forth — shall be historically correct.

—Mr Melton Prior, the celebrated war artist, has witnessed over a score of campaigns, and his clever sketches have gained) bini a great reputation. The son of a draughtsman and landscape painter, Mr Melton Prior . was educated at Boulogne and London, and his first appearance on the battlefield was in tho Ashanti war of 1873. ile has represented tho Illustrated London News for very many years, not only as a war correspondent and artist, but as their artist ot all important State ceremonies and &r,c al functions. Among these mention may be made of Mr Prior's journey to Athon<» with the present King's suite in 1875, find his trip with the King of Denmark's expedition through Iceland, while lie also accompanied the Marquis and Marchioness of Lome on their first visit to Canada some years ago.

—Mr John Longstaff. the well-known. Victorian painter, who h-is been commissioned to paint a picture on Burke and Wills' s expedition for tho National Gallery of Victoria, written to Mr Edward Langtoo, president of tho trustees, stating th:>t most of his time for the next six months will be given up to this picture. Tlio King is taking a special iimrojt in JjOi-1 Bcauchamp's commission to Mr Longstaff to pa;nt a portrait of las Majesty for the National Gallery of New South Wales, and the artist does not anticipate any difficulty in petting the necessary sittings. Mr Longstafr," who hac takfii the studio in St. John's Wood formerly occupied by the lat-* Edwin Long. R.A., has just had a picture hung on the lino at the Academy. Mr Hugh Ramsay, who was trained at the Melbourne Gallery, is at present staying with Mr Longstaff, and the latter speaks in hign terms of Mr Rnmsay's work in Paris, and thinks that he> will he a credit to the National Gallery schooli.

— The tension of a sick room when a human being is battling for dear life has never b tt on raoro forcibly delineated on canvas than in Luke Fildes's picture of "The Doctor," one of the few great works of the present century. The scene is a humble home. On a small bed in the foreground lies a child sick unto death. The doctor, a noble head, grandly painted, is watching intently tho struggle going on. The lampshade has boen tilted so that tho light ray strikes first the doctor and then, floods hi 9 patient, leaving the background in darkness, but not dark enough, to prevent the parents being seen. Thu mother, in despair, has flung her arms upon the table and buried her head in them. Tlio father, standing erect as a statue, places one hand softly on- her shoulder, and looks eagerly across at the doctor. It is .a superb piece of work, tall- of human nature, and one that it is impossible to look at without emotion.

TWO GREAT PICTURES

A writer in a Dublin paper gives th« following impressions of two paintings which particularly pxcitr-d his admiration in tho English section oi the. Art Gallery of the Ccrk Exhibition, h,eld in June: —

Some things paint can do better than others : some thing* cannot find expression by means cf colour and light and shaxle, whiio there {ire others tint no art but painting can express at all. Ht-rkomer'a "Zither Evening with My Students" her<» in this collection is an example of what paint can do at its beet : it lias seized with lovely truth and expresses with manly force a scene of more importance than one thinks at first sight in the life of a nation : a scene impossible in Ireland for who ,knows how manyyears to come, and rare^ — probably unique even— in England. Sitting at the extreme right front of the pictuie is the artist, and swung round him in an arc is a group of his students— 22 all told— each vividly portrayed in a manner as far from photography as the whole is from what a camera version of the same 'ceno would lx>. 'Tib the most; virile pictuic in this collection— amazing, indeed, in its vivacity, in its merry seriousness. It causes one to wonder more and more how "historical" pictures ever come to be painted! How many big pseudo-classi-cal pictures is this painting worth because of its h*»art and love? \nother picture, lovely because of its sincerity (which leads to good craftsmanship always), it Millais's "Apple Blossoms. Though the orchard seem? Fomewhat "fierce and rigid," as Rusldn's criticism of it went, .-till it is altogether beautiful both in the theme and in the painting, and also in the memories it calls up of the great revolt against manufactured art. There is a pensivo beauty about tho whole thing — girls with childlike minds sitting beneath apple t ree * that puts a eadness in tho mind looking on it'; perhaps the intruding gcyths suggests as much in the artist's mind. She dwells with Beauty— Beauty that musi dio, And Joy— whose hand is ever at his hps Bidding adieu.

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