ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2804, 11 December 1907, Page 71

ART AND ARTISTS.

— Miss Lucy Kemp-Welch the famous animal painter, possesses a small menagerie of pet creatures which serve her as models. At her capacious studio at Bushey she incessantly plies her brush in the delineation of equestrian studies, in which she excels. She combines pluck with genius, for one day a spirited horse, serving as a. battle model in her studio, escaped into the street; but, nothing daunted, the artist rushed after and captured the runaway and brought him back.

— George Bernard Shaw has been describing Mr Forbes-Robertson, who is just now touring the provinces. And there aro few who will quarrel with the description. Mr Forbes-Robertson is one of ythe ornaments of the English stage. Artist as well as actor, he might have spent his life as a painter but for his splendid face, which led the author of "Marie Stuart" to choose him for the role of Ohastelard. As it is, his pictures are well known, and he is a great actor because he is a great artist. He was "hung" in the Academy before he was 20, and his portraits of Ellen Terry and Mme. Modjeska, with his painting of the Church Scene in "Much Ado About Nothin?." have earned high praise fiom the best critics of art.

— Tell three artists to paint a picture to the title "Spring." One may give you a vista of glowing apple-blos6om, copulent and heartening in the morning sun, with an enchanted carpet of blown petals; the second by an idyll will show you the subtle allure of the lilood— a youth and a girl, perhaps, laughing, glancing, bravely swinging hand in hand down some country lane; while the third will pot-sibly «?t on his canvass just that mystery which Maeterlinck chothe-5 in language and Chopin in Bound : trees, with solemnly grotesque arms stretched out to a. sky of ccol, silver space?, their twigs swollen at the lips by folded buds; everything breathlessly waiting for 6ome whispered word in the twilight; everything with the pasiion and pang and divine wistfulne**- of all very beautiful earthly things behind it. And tno-n people will a^k : "Which picture do you like best— A, B, or C?"— Academy. — There aie few who understand how ir.ueh the illusion of reality in a picture depends upon fa.sh.ion and custom. We aro used to certain representations of reality, and we assume therefore that the repie«cntations are nearer to absolute truth than any to which we are- not used. We should letnember that even among contemporary pictures there i-s a. vast difference in lepresentations of reality, and that a man who would find absolute truth in the representations of Sir Lawrence Alma 'fade ma Mould find none at all in thoee of Monet; whale it is the contention of Monet's extreme admirers that he is the first painter who has seen reality as it is. Wo must not assume, therefore, that the technique of a> picture i 3to be judged only by the illusion of reality which it gives ul-.u 1 -. Before wo can judge of that technique wo must; know what aspect or facts of reality the painter wished to represent, and also what was his purpose in representing them. If, then, he has succeeded in his representation and in his purpose, we may be sure tha*- hia technique is good. — Tribune. —An interesting anecdote of the manner in which a student at the Ecole dea Beaux Arts in Pans lost the friendship of the late M. Augustus St. Gaudens has i'u-t been related by an eminent French hculptor. '\M. St. Gaudens was a strangely generous and upiif-'ht man,'' the sculptor -aid. "He could Moop to nothing mean or ignoble even m the ca^e of lii= worst eatrav. A fuw J e*r= befoic la- death

there had been a squabble in certain ar{ circles, and some rather dishonourahU things had been done. Riding uith St. Gaudens on a tramcar one day was a French student from Paris's great art 6chool, where the trouble had originated. Suddenly the wife of an instructor at th« school entered, 'flow do you do, madam, 1 said the Ftudent politely. 'Did you enjoy your stay at Ostend last week?' 'Thank you,' answered the lady, 'but I have not been to Ostend.' The student pretended to be amazed. 'But, surely,' he said, 'I saw your husband there, and on the hotel register ' 'Hush,' broke in St. Gau« dens sharply. 'Hush, you idiot!' And. very pale and trembling the lady rose and alighted from the tram. After she was gone St. Gaudens turned to the student and said, 'Did you really see old at Ostend?' 'No, of course not,' the other replied, with a malicious laugh, 'but that beast plucked me last term, and I have been waiting to get even ever since.' " St« Gaudens never spoke to that student again*