ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2690, 4 October 1905, Page 85

ART AND ARTISTS.

MEZZOTINT ENGRAVINGS.

Although country collectors oY engravings have many difficulties to contend with in obtaining a thorough knowledge of their subject, the bequest of the lato Lord Cheylesmore to the British Museum leaves no excuse open to any London amateur (says C. H. Wykle in London Opinion) for not knowing anything he wants to kr.ov regarding any of the important _ engravers and their works from the invention of the process by Ludwig yon Siegen onwards. This collection, which came to the nation in 1902, consists of about 12,000 prints, and i P estimated to be- worth, at present prices, £60,000. It has been arranged by Mr Sydney Cblviw, th© keeper of the prints ar.d drawings in the British Museum, in the gallery of that department, whew, united with the collection already in th? possession of the Museum, it forms a sents as near the ideal in perfection as it is possible to obtain.

Amongst the early masters should Ye noted the fine- examples of George Whito and John Smith, who both produced portraits after the paintings by Kneller. Many people have examples Dy J. Smith, but tl.ey are usually laokiag in sharpness and pale iv colour. This engraver should not be confused with a late worker, J. R. Sdnitti, of greater fame. GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS, THE MAN. A great" deal lias been written concerning the art and ideals of the late George "Frederick Watts, but not much has been told us about the personality which was ai the back of his art and ideals. This deficiency has now, to a considerable extent at least, been supplied by Mrs Russell Barrington in her ."Reminiscences of G. F. Watts" (Allen, 21s net). The volume contains the* record of a long and intimate friendship — a friendship evidently on both sides, based on understandings and admiration and a broad sincerity. We see Watls in his studio, in his garden, in his hours of simple relaxation, as well as in his hours of strenuous labour, and the picture is one which leaves in the mind an impression of singular sweetness and force.

— In Rossetti's Studio.—

It- was in Rossetti's studio that Mrs Barrington and Watts first met. " Steeped with the glamour of the place," says the writer, " I sat very happily watching his (Rossetti's) brush and' listening to his vibrating {dpep voice," when the dooi opened and a party came in: — "The one figure absorbed all my attention. Habited iv a long- sealskin coat, it was small, but in no wise insignificant— on the contrary, it was distinguished in appsarance. The face was handsome, with a serious countenance sugig-astiag a latent weariness and melancholy hidden under a crust of reserve." Some 3'ears passed, anii again Mrs Barrington met Watts, this lime in the old Little Holland House, which was about to be pulled down. In its place was built ilio new Little Holland House, and next door to it Mrs Barringtoi and her husband took up their aboda. The new Little Holland House _was characteristic of its builder's .love of retirement ; to guard against staying quests there was only one bedroom in addition.- to those for servants, and there was also only one sitting room, the remainder of ths ground floor being occupied by four studio?. For the making of money Watts earod nothing ; so long as he had enough for his simple needs l>e was content,- and somttimes he hardly reserved enough for those needs. " Love and Death," for which he refused £3000, he gave to Manchester. " I don't find any difficulty," he said to a, friend, "in giving three tho'isand pounds ; I should in giving five shillings."

— His Modesty.—

Watts was painfully modest, painfully nervous. "I am nothing," he exclaimed to Mrs Barrington. " Oh ! you will find out I am nothing ! I have no genius, no facility; anyone could do better work if they sacrificed everything to it as I do ! One thing alone I possess, and I never remember the time I was without it — an aim towards the highest, the best, and the burning desire to reach it." He could not bear to come into close contact with many people. " 1 shotild like to go into a monastex'y," he onoe wrote and when Oxford conferred on him his honorary degree, he could not face the subsequent luncheon, and retired into the meadows to cat a packet of sandwiches alone. He suffered seriously from nervous depression, but when the attack had passed there followed a reaction of enthusiasm which flattered 2,nd inspired his friends. He was ab-sui-dly economical, just as he was absurdly generous. It was his rule, night after night, after he had lighted his candle from a paper spill, to put the unburnt half on the moulding above the fireplace. Mrs Barrington warned liim that he might burn down the house by this little economy, to which he replied, " I am very careful ; I don't like waste, even of half a spill !" Even his own most modest food struck him in certain moods as extravagant. .For supper he took "the cold remains of the dull little pudding, made without sugar, which had been hot for his dinner in llie middle of the day, and a tumbler of nvlk mixed with barley-water ; summer and winter, never any change." To have as much as that tliotres->ed him when he thought of puddingless beggars.

— Recreation* and Sympathy.—

This book is the record of a life of incessant labour,- from sunme to sunset the painter worked, .in spite of bodily weakness and often in physical pain. He had moods, of gaiety and relaxation, but he lived to' give of his best to otheis. He loved music, and Mrs Barriugton was his chief performer of Handel and Beethoven: — "On most evenings, after I had played for a little while, he would put down his palette and say, 'Let us have a song. It is gccil for the health. It expands the chest.' His favourites were Dibdm's ' Tom Bowling,' 1 The banks of Allan Water,' ' The Vicar of Bray,' ' Sally in our alley,' ' Tell me, my heart,' and many others of Bishop's son^s. The elaborate cadenzas in these last he achieved with astonishing ease and p> excision, considering his age and the fact that he had not practised for years. TheiY> were times when Watts thought he had inifcsed his true vocation i he had r.evela-

tions in sound, and so argued that ho ought to have been a nrusician rather than a painter. He heard melodies and harmonies without thought, but only one picture had come to him as a vision, and that was 'Time, Death, and Judgment.' The ictea flashed upon his inner sight, aud he instantly put it down in chalk." To encourage his adopted daii^n^r Blanche— whom ho often painted— to loam the violin, he took lessons himself. .Nervous man though he was, he could endure the uproariousness of children, whom ho loved. " I have a good nature," he usod to say, " but lam irritable." Mrs Barrington affirms that she never saw him irritable, though on one occasion he flew into :»>,, rage with a blundering servant. Bu^ for this less of self-control ho apologised both to the servant and her. His sensitiv sness, exaggerated, of course, during illness, was extreme. "He oould not read a book with any story without being ridiculously affected, and the expression of a baby's foro suggested unutterable things.' Ho roid Mrs Barriugton that the acutest pain he ever felt was when, as a boy, he accidentally crushed a pet canary.

—Characteristics and Friendships.— Watts"s sensitiveness impressed him with a horror of pain and injustice; vivisection, sport that has for its object the destruction of life, gambling— these things he could not endure. And this shrinking from rough contact with the world made him a man of few friends, though tho^o few were of the most intimate kind. H's admiration and affection for Leighton wire unbounded; he thought his character ' the most beautiful he had ever known."' A r ror Leighton's death he wrote : "I am glad you knew him so well; I am glad for anyone who knew him. No one- will e\cv know such another. Alas! alasl alas! For Tennyson and Browning, also, he had a deep affection ; but Leighton was his ideal; their very "difference of temperament seemed to draw them closer together. It is one of the miseries of long life to ?oe the passing of friends, and Watts saw many go down before the call came to

him. He had a presentiment that lie would die in 1904. A few weeks before the end came he wrote : " I think aspiration will remain as long as there is consciousness," and so it was. Mrs Barrington's volume i<3 a worthy record of a great friendship and a great and unselfish life.— T. P.'s Weekly.