ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2818, 18 March 1908, Page 103

ART AND ARTISTS.

~-Aj the Royal Academy there is an abundance of the commonplace and the eon ■ Tentional: outside it there- is a superfluity of the eccentric. Except among the stronger spirits, within the Academy portals, at its Stammer Show, there is a preoccupation with insignificant prettinees. The human face divine is held to-want to be "idealised," and natural landscape is not so good but it needs to be flattered. But outside the Academy portals I know of spots whew nothing but ugliness is deemed charming —and is that optimistic or paradoxical belief at all conspicuously ■wiser than the cult of the cheaply elegant, the cult of the namby-pamby! Some of the most repulsive faces that the world 1 has seen or that creative artists have imagined are to be discovered in the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci —yet I would remind the most enthusiastic upholder of the ungainly that it is possible to equal Leonardo in ugliness and to approach him in nothing whatever beside. These are ways of courting attention. It is not in France alone by any means (though France alone is in possession of the phrase} —it » not in France alone that the fairly frequent object of a young man's ambition is mainly to "epater le bourgeois." The "bourgeois" may be astounded, but is the Child of Light convinced?— Frederick Wedmore, in the Pall Mall Gazette. W. P. FRITH, R.A. The following is from P. T. O. of January 18: — This veteran artist, who, on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday, was honoured with the Commandership of the Victorian Order at the hands of the King last week, is the sole, survivor among the notable artists -of mid-Victorian days. It was ho who received the official commission to paint the ceremony when our present King and Queen were married. Among those present. on that occasion was a certain Duke, whose chief possessions, with the exception of. his title and estates, were a very broad-rimmed hat and very plain features. Mr Frith «nrote to this personage asking for the favour of a sitting, as he wished to include him in the picture. Prompt was the Duke's reply: "Dear Sir. — My engagements for the next few months will not give mo any leisure to comply with your request. If it is absolutey necoseary that my form should be portrayed by you, I would suggest, in regard to my face, that you represent it as buried in my hat, according to jhe manner of most people when they go to church." —Quantity with Quality. — An amusing story is told by Mr Jfrith himself about his picture, "The Derby Dfey." It was the habit of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort to bring their boys and girls to the private view of the Royal Academy (then hejd in Trafalgar Square) and naturally this canvas greatly interested the young people. "Oh, mamma," exclaimed one of the little princes, "I never saw so many people!" "Nonsense'," said the Queen; "you have often seen many more." ."But not in a picture, mamma," was die response. Queen Victoria throughout her life displayed great appreciation of Mr Friths work, and when his "Ramsgate Sands" was popularly * —'adjudged to be the picture of its year, and the peinter was presented to her at the Royal Academy, her Majesty immediately offered to purchase the canvas. AN IDEA FOR WOMEN ARTISTS Every year thousands of square yards of canvas are assiduously covered with paint by artists, male and female, after their kind, with no hope of selling those so-called works of art to a generation surfeited with modern pictures. It has long been obvious that collectors will give fancy sums for Reynbldses and Gaineboroughs, Romneys and Hoppners, bnt will not nowadays disburse a fifty-pound note even for a once-famous canvas by Snooks, R.A. And if the masculine painters feel the ■hardness of the times, how much more do the feminine artiste! People have become tired of having their portraits painted, even though they Are depicted in evening dress and diamond tiara, or in' "pink." surrounded by the fox-hounda of which they are such popular and spirited masters. Of miniatures, too. we are becoming a trifle satiated, but a field of enterprise lies open to the artist who will revive the exquisite art of portraiture in enamel, such as was practised by Petitot and BordVr in the times of Charles I. and Louis XIV. Enamelling is an art which can be practised with brilliant success by women, as we see from the annual exhibits of the Misses Ella and Nelia Casella: and it only remains for one of our beautiful youmr duchesses to set the fashion for the world of London to have their portraits done in enamel and surrounded with precious stones.—Ella Hepworth Dixon, in the Sketch.