THE HOMES OF ENGLISH ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2649, 21 December 1904, Page 83

THE HOMES OF ENGLISH ARTISTS.

_ZJ?erhaps the most beautiful houses in j London belong*; or have belonged, as by.j rights they- should i do, to painters. Even money unlimited cannot give -the distinc- ' > tion and individuality which go for so much in the cult of the beautitul. Dorchester House, . with its splendid stairway ; Stafford House, with its pillared hail ; the new - erection which has given -the Duchess of Marlborough such food for ' thought ; the suite of rooms in Bath -House upon swhdch the famous bjronze chandeliers shed light — all these are beautiful. - But one's thoughts fly off, to 'the Leighton corridor at - Holland Park, -or even to the entrance hall in the house in St. John's Wood " where Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema lives. * This*' last" apartment certainly has .a unique charm, a beauty which may ~ almost be termed friendship ' rendered visible. _ The fashionable crowd as it elbows its <way up the studio stair in Sir Lawrence's . abode glances fight- and \left at the panelled -walls, recognising a Marcus Stone or a, Leighton, or the realistic brushes of Serjeant and Collier as it passes. But only the habitues of the house quite know the story of that range of which is the ' distinctive feature of ' Sir Lawrence's House" Beautiful: - There" -care ' 30 compartments -in the - irooden' walls under 3ft high arid less than a foot" broad, and they contain the most" diversified subjects,- "and cover the v widest, range of 'colour and treatment. But, one and all, they, sire, the spontaneous offerings of the^ainter's - friends— labours of love,\ •?as well.as*mo'st- lovely of khourings. There is Prinsep's Indian girl stepping down to the Ganges water, a study made by the artist when he went to paint his great picture of the proclamation of the First Empress of India. There is Mr Wirg- ' man's Joan ~of Arc, a typical French peasant wench ; but beyond her bends an angel bearing ,the crown of immortality blazing "above her brow. " Macwhirter's silver birch trees ■ shine heside a Scottish sea. A leafless thorn stands dead among the pale primroses of "the most disthressful counthry," ' the work of Sir E. Waterfowl Italy shines from the panel painted by the late M. R._ Corbet — the Tuscan Italy he so dearly loved. Mr Alfred East brought the dazzling white cone of Fuji- Yama, the sacred mountain of Japan, to link Japanese thought ana life with one of the most ardent of European lovers of Japanese art — for Sir Lawrence- has , long -been a member of the Japanese Society, and loved her art long before Japan was "the fashion." i Lord Leighton' s contribution to this ! "friendship's wall" is the germ from which sprang his famous/ picture, 'fThe Bath of Psyche."- ■ The Isle president, of the Royal Academy was pitting -at " table! with the j Alma : Tademas when ,the. question of his subject, came up.\ "What am I .to paint on this?"/ asked he, picking up his dessert 1 knifa •' and' indicating , its long, narrow blade. "My. dear Tadema, a fishing-rod', j with a trout hung up to a nailjbehind it, ! is the only thing that .occurs to me." But when he came to paint upon that narrow panel,- gradually one of the most = exquisite of" all the exquisite nudes born from his brush evolved herself — a creature so pure and fair that her creator himself fell in love with her. For his friend Tadema had he painted- her, and to Tadema she belonged ; but Lord Leighton (begged to be allowed to reproduce her, to work out again that embodiment of girlish innocence and grace. The result was the picture over which all London treat wild, and which in its various reproductions has had such an extraordinary Toque. Mr Frank Dicksee's "Andromeda" stands chained to her rock, just as dozens ofother Andromedas have stood on the walls of Burlington House. By the way, in this year's wanderings, the present writer found himself on the very spot which mythology points to as the place where that much-be-painted incident took place. It is at Jaffa, on the Syrian coast. Grim reefs make landing a difficult matter, for " there is no semblance of a harbour ; and if there is the least wind blowing huge «eas break in foam over ir-e long, flat rocks until even the adroit Arab boatmen find it hard to steer through the narrow opening in the reef. Here, the ancient story tells, is the spot •nrhere Andromeda was chained to await her fate and the jaws of the ocean monster. We could not help thinking the actual scene offered, a' far more dramatic terror than the usual accompaniment of steep cliffs and towering rocks. .Surely .the. maidenl lying there "on the long, low reef,

lifted but an inch or two above the sea, with the infinite reflections of the sunlit water below her, and the bare blaze of the sky above — surely that would appeal to the soul of a painter! Beside her only the sea, whence would come the hideous form of the monster ; and the sky, through which Perseus came hurrying to her rescue. We make a gift of the idea to the next artist who dreams of Andromeda as his subject for his 1905 Academy picture.