ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2664, 5 April 1905, Page 78

ART AND ARTISTS.

— A General Assembly of Academicians and Associates of the Royal Academy took place in Burlingtoa House, at which Mr Da\id Murray was elected an Academician, while ±\lr David Farquharson and Mr Reginald Blomfield (architect) \\ ere chosen associates. Mr Murray, a landscape painter, is 56 years of age, and was at first destined for a commercial career in Glasgow. His inclination towards art, however, led him to abandon the office to study Nature, and the result is a series of pictures portraying we-11-known places in this country and abroad, which ensured the honour which has now tallen to him. Mr Farquharson is also a Scotsman, hailing from Perthshire, ! who came to tempt fortune in London exactly 21 years ago, and succeeded in the effort. Mr Blomfield, the other new associate, is a grandson of a famous Bishop of London, and examrlc* of his architectural style are scattered all over the country. — A story of the Middle Ages has just been repeated in Italy with" all the details complete. If one strolls into the Franciscan Church in Aseoli-Piceno he will free (writes the Pall Mall Ga7ette correspondent) a young monk busily decorating either the cupola or walls of the church. If you speak to him he will declare that his name is Father Paolo ; but to this quiet man, who passes his days praying and painting, as did Fra Angelioo of old, is attached a most romantic story. Augusto Mussini was a young painter of some note, who fell passionately in love with a beautiful young girl, who apparently returned his love. One day he awoke violently from his dream t:> find that his. lady-love had transferred her affections to his friend. However, the course of true love- for the lady neier seemed to run smooth, as she found that the second lov-er was not -what she supposed, so he promptly committed suicide. Her volatile affections then returned to the talented artist, who, feeling his weakness, as he still loved her devotedly, thought discretion the better part of valour, and promptly disappsared. When he failed 1 to return a hue and cry was raised, murder was openly talked of, the story was ventilated in the papers, but still there was no tiace of Mussini. Who would have thought of looking for an impetuous, passionate artist in a monk's garb? But so it was. He had taken refuge, in a safe harbour, but that his lady is still his lady is proved by the fact that all his angels bear her face. — Sir Edward Poyjiter, whose successor at the National Gallery everyone is busy orpointing, became the son of Mr Ambrose. Poynter, arohitect, nearly 68 years ago, and began his career by studying for his father's profession. He was born in Paris, and his early schooling was at Westminster, whence, finding that London did not suit his rather delicate lealth, they sent him to Ipswich Grammar School, and subsequently to Madevira. It -was there, at the age of 16, that he came to the conclusion that he would make a better artist than an architect, and the following winter spent in Rome, where he uamt> under Leighton's influence, encouraged him in his determination. Sir Edward has rever been a rnally great painter in the highest sense of the word, but he has always been sincere in his work, an-d art, after all. is only one of the qualifications for the mesidency of the Royal Academy. The 'chief of the Forty must he a man of scholarship* of good social address, of tact and understanding, and half a hundred other things. Both at the Academy and the- National Gallery he had the misfortune to follow men of g"r<*ater eminenoe than himself, but in each case it would have been impossible to find the equal of his predecessor. Sir Edward married a Miss Macdonald one of whose sisters married Sir E "l ward Burne- Jones, and another Mr Loekwood Kipling.

THE IMPRESSIONISM STRUGGLE. —Monet and Manet.—

Impressionis-n, in the narrow modern sense of the word, was born less than 50 years ago in Pari? through the unintentionally significant tiile given to a sunset picture by Claude Monet. It was called "Impressions" — and impressions all works from his brilliant brush and the less brilliant brushes of his folloAvers have since been labelled.

Of the group of young men whose works were thus na-ned and ridiculed were two or three who had no technical right to the distinction. But it was a group of friends— a group that met together nightly in a cafe, that rebelled against the academic in art, that was "young" in all its member*.

In^ the forefront of the battles fought by this, gicup was Edouard Manet, an impressionist in the broader and older sen^e. but not. until the last years of his life, a painter in that particular method imented by his friend,

— Claude Monet. —

This method had for its objeot the expression of li.ght. To express light in aJI its purity, only the- colours of the spectrum were u-ed, placed side by bide and unmixed upon the canya*. This juxtaposition of colours, varying" in proportion one to the other according to the atmo=nheric effect to be rendered, has been used in ingenius fashion by Claude Monet. He has made lasting the most fleeting vision of the sunlit landscape, and in the moment's impression of li^lit upon the cathedrals of France, or upon the cottage wall, he has put on canvas realities that will last for centurio*. His eye and his hand were ever eager to c cc an-d to seize the "multiUidinous. aspects of liaht. He brought insight ro the secrets of illumination, his constant aim being, one may «ay. to view the lighting rather than the object lighted.

The history of the rise and the temporary falls of the Imprc««ionUt movement in Paris from 1860 onwards is in all ways an uneventful one.

— Edouarcl Manet — was the unit of all the group ivlio had the strength to fight officialdom— a stiongth that was his partly bnoau^o he had money, a rare sinew of war for the young- and unconventional avtict : and paitly because his nature was combative and stiong. When he and hi^ comrade* were rejected pell-mell from the saWu it was jtfanet who had the energy to collect picture? embodying the revolutionary spirit and exhibit them, rlius giving the public an opportunity of judging what the members of the Salon thought unfit to be seen. The famous Salon dcs Kefus&s was the rebellion against an tir natural conservatism and intolerance. The IWW; spirit vras abroad; the spirit

born, though =o diffrrentlv pmhodicj, at Barbizon. Nothing could stuy tlio search for truth — oven for the unplca-ant truths that interested Manet, who was a realist, and a friond of Zola. — "VT. }J.," in the Illustrated London News.