ART AND ARTISTS

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 22, 3 June 1893, Page 512

ART AND ARTISTS

IT is strange that the current numbers of the Art Journal just how being distributed to the multitudinous colonial subscribers should contain a photogravure of perhaps the finest picture painted by Mr Vicat Cole, R. A., whose untimely death leaves a terrible gap in the ranks of

British artists. He was born at Portsmouth in 1833, bis father, Mr George Cole, being a well-known member of the Society of Biitish Artists. He was still living at Portsmouth when, at the age of nineteen, he sent his first exhibited pictures to the Society of British Aitists. One was • Scene on the Wye, Tintern,’ and theother • From Symonds’ Yacht on the Wye.’ In 1853 he exhibited at the Royal Academy a view on the Moselle and * Ranmoor Common, Surrey.’ For the last thirty years he has been a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy, and sunshine and storm, field and fallow, have been limned by bis master hand. He was not a mere studio artist, it was in the fields and the woodlands that he painted his pictures, which were finished in his library. Throughout his career he had a great liking for the county of Surrey, which, with its varied scenery, within a short distance of London, afforded him that variety of colour and type that was indispensable. A scene near Leith Hill, Dorking, which he called ‘ A Surrey Cornfield,’ and exhibited in 1860, was universally admired, and exhibited in the international Exhibition of 1862. In 1870, he became an associate of the Royal Academy, and ten years later a Royal Academician. The general dissatisfaction expressed by artists during the past few years at the wholesale reproduction of their pictures in illustrated papers and handbooks to the Royal Academy, has resulted in a scheme whereby Royal Academicians receive an honorarium of £5 each for the right of reproduction of their works. It is understood that this arrangement only includes members of the Royal Academy, but it will doubtless also be extended to the chief * outsiders.' The Continental method of showing in the metropolis a statue intended for the colonies has been followed in London. A statue of the Queen, seated, has been temporarily erected opposite the Horse Guards, prior to its depatch as a jubilee memorial for Hong Kong. This statue is by M. Raggi. Although art knows no nationality, yet it would be good news for English artists if Her Majesty could be persuaded to give native talent moie recognition. At present the Court is quite out of touch with the Royal Academy, or any other group of British painters.

Artists of all kinds are determined that Japan shall not grow slack for want of artistic visitors, and, whereas we have had to chronicle Mr Phil May’s immediate journey to Japan, the name of Mr Louis Fagan is now to be added to the list of Japanese artistic visitors. He left England about a month ago, having for his object the study of Japanese art and the preparation of a series of drawings which he himself will subsequently etch. He will spend six months in Japan.

The Archbishop of Westminster, but recently created Cardinal, has, it is whispered on the highest authority, determined to open a very elaborate exhibition under the name of ‘Christian Art.’ The title is vague enough, in all conscience, and what may or may not be included in the exhibition it passes, from the mere name, the wit of man to conceive. We understand, however, that it will include the different forms of Christain life in the past as exhibited through the art that apparently was inspired by Christianity. Thus there would be models of churches and basilicas, paintings by masters old and new concerned with Christian and religious subjects. Replicas of shrines, of cathedrals, of scenes in the past will be included, and the whole is to lie temporarily housed in the great open space opposite the prison-looking building in Carlisle Place where the Archbishops of Westminister reside.