ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2734, 8 August 1906, Page 76

ART AND ARTISTS.

A POINTER OF FLOWERS.

The narre of tho- painter Fantin La tour' is familiar enough in England, says La Revue do Paris. A picture by him^of a Mrs Edwards and her husband was presented 'by Mrs Edwards to the National Gallery. It is even eaid that his name during his lifetime was better known here than in France, fot every autumn he despatched as a <. as* of canvases, which Mrs Edwards, his faithful friend and admirer, had framed, and 6old as a rule among connoisseurs in England. But though he painted a goodly number of portraits and subject -oietures, Fantin Latour's true reputation rests upon His painting of flowesr. A really beautiful study of flowers was almost an unknown art in Europe until be cune and revealed its possibilities. In Japan artists have 'hrilled to the exquisite gri.ee and colour of blossoms from the beginning of their artistio development. Japanese pictures of a flower, or a branch, or a spray of blossoms are more absolutely sufficient 4s things of beauty than half the pictures in the National Gallery. Colour, line, juxtaposition are all there, and a delicate joy and restraint to which excess would be impossible. But ' among European ertists studies of still life were always deplorable exhibitions of mere technique, generally a little vulgar, always a failure. Fantin Latour has changed all this.

— His Private Life. —

Fantin Latour was not an eaay man to get on with. He was married, ,and his wife, ;t would seem, understood him admirably. But he was irascible, full of prejudices, and afraid of every kind of movement. From year's end to ~yoar's end, except for his annual stay in his cottage in the country, he remained shut up in his studio-dwelling, and before anybody was admitted he went to a peep-hole to see who they were. He had only one social outing in the year — the varnishing day of the Saion. He always sent the same number of pictures — two oil paintings, two pastels, and some lithographs — and went through the exhibition well hemmed in by friends and admirers, who prevented any acquaintances from getting at him. His horror of crowds, of people, aud of travelling intensified as he grew older, until ho seldom went out of doors. To cross a road became painful to him. He knew, in fact, nothing of life ■except what he gleaned from books and papers — he spent his evenings absorbed in litorature-^and what ho gathered from the conversation of the few friend's he allowed to come to see him. These comersations interested him — he 6aid i hat each penson stood for a different point of view to him — and he had weekly social oveniug6 most of the months he was in Paris. Before the arrival of his friends he would usually go out and buy some fancy cabe, Being extremely fond of sweet things, and Lhis brief expedition constituted hi 3 chef form of out-dao** ■exercise until hi', goiug into the country. There, in the lowly garden — a pritst's garden — of his emaU white house, he painted the flowers upon which his celebrity was subsequently largely to tesi.

BARTOLOME ESTEBAN MURILLO

Tno time came when 3'oung Murillo considered he had *awd enough money to take him to Flanders, and with his humble be longing" on his back, he set out to trudge the unknown road- For hundreds of miles ho trudged through Spain, and, travel-worn aud penniless, entered Madrid. Here he found a friend in the great artint Velasquez, then ot the heighi of his fame. _ He invitfd Murillo to his studio; he introduced him to the nobility, and found him plenty to do. Far three years our young artiss remained in the capital city, gaining, undar the kindly assistance of iiis friend a. complete knowledge of his art. Velasquez advised him to go to Rome for further fctudy, but Baitolome was homesick. The city jp the arid plain was not like his beloved Seville, and he had never viewed in imagination the roofs of Antwerp with half the longing that he now felt for those of his native place. But Musillo who returned to Seville was not the one who had set out from it. The story of his achievements at th« Court gf Madud

had traveHeif Aster than the mules, tnaT brought him bolt, and his brush and palette were SQorr bwy with. piotwres—for- many a church and monastery. Though he had learned much from his friend in -Madrid concerning painting, though he had studied well the clever colouring of Titian, the Venetian artist, and the care and neatnessof Van Dyok, there is nothing in his own work like ajiy of these. Thus, though it was unlike his own work, he still loved to visit, in the Seville Cathedral, the picture that had won his early admirationf How little he had thought that the world would ever deem a work of his worthy to hang beside it 1 Yet in a few years after his return from Madrid, ho stood on the highest pinnacle of fame. Spain was proud of him. He had won for her a. place in the history of art almost on a level with Italy.

Perhaps it was the memory of the poverty from which he had risen that made him, e>en now, delight in painting pictures of lowly life. Perhaps it was the hope and courage which he never allowed to fade from his own heart that have made him put such sunshine hito the eyes and faces of his little beggar boys. Murillo' s boye and girla were all contented," though ..their clothed were ragged, and their dinners evidently not always ready when they wanted them most. After his one brave journey, the great ertist tever suffered homesickness again. ' Ho spent the rest of his life almost within the circle of the shadow cast by the beautiful cathedral tower, except for an occasional; visit to Cadiz with hjg paints and brushes. And, alas ! it was the last of ' tneeo journeys that led to his deatbW As lie -was climbing the scaffolding erectedbefore one- of his pictures high nipon * convent wall, he missed his footing and fell. _Alraost in a dying condition, he was, conveyed to his home in Seville, where, after lingering under a partial recovery, ho died on April 3, 1682, at the age of 65. Amid universal mourning he was buried the next day in the cathedral, his tonib being, in accordance with his own desire, in froat of the picture which had. "lone so much to awaken his genius. — John Lea, in Little Folks for May.