OUR ILLUSTRATIONS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIII, Issue XVIII, 28 October 1899, Page 782

OUR ILLUSTRATIONS.

I X\ EILING OF MR DITTMER'S I’lCTl RE AT ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S, PARNELL.

On another page we publish a photograph of the fresco painting which has just been executed in the Roman Catholic Church, Parnell, Auckland. The artist (Mr Dittmer) has recently arrived from Paris, where he completed his studies, which he had previously followed in Dusseldorf and in Italy.

The subject is that of the Transfiguration of our Lord on Mount Timber, and affords great scope for the undoubted talents of the artist as a figure painter. The style is an imitation of the fresco art, the origin and growth of which are outlined in the sketch attached, which was read by the Rev. Dr. Egan, 0.5.8., on the occasion of the unveiling of the picture..

In a ease of this kind, where one of the chief attractions is the blending of the rich colours of the various robes, it is, of course, impossible to achieve a perfect success with photography. and we therefore strongly recommend lovers of art to view the original. From the dawn of Christianity in the West, and especially during the. so-called Dark Ages, the Church was the sole repository of the arts and sciences. In the beginning of the fifteenth century and during the following cAhturies, she stood supreme as the promoter and cultivator of the art of painting in all its branches. In. fact, it was by means of art that she spread the knowledge of God's Word and gradually civilised the barbarous and superstitious nations over which she ruled The fifteenth century, or as it is called in (he language of art, Quaterocento, witnessed the rise of the religions school of painting, and was the glorious era of the great monastic painters, of which school Fra Angelico anil his followers stand forth as brilliant examples. We date from this period the magnificent fresco or wall painting in Italy, examples of which we find in Venice, Florence and Rome, in which latter city those of the Vatican and Capella Sistina stand foremost. Fresco, or wall painting, is the most ancient form of the pictorial school. These paintings as a rule are so vast tlvat it would be impossible for a single individual to complete them. Hence the great masters had around them a staff of educated and trained artists who faithfully followed the instructions and worked under the very eye of the master himself. The process of fresco painting was as follows: The subject was depicted on the wet mortar, which Was set by the plasterer. who each day deposited as much groundwork as the master and his pupils reouired. The master first drew a small sketch which he afterwards enlarged to the required size. It was then attached to the wall, but both wall and painting being damp the latter appeared very sombre for some days after, until, the process of drying being completed, the colours came out in their pristine beauty. Once this process had taken place! the master could make no alteration. The massive proportions of these paintings entailed the necessity of rapid and simple work, and to this simplicity is due their beauty of form and colour, the arrangement of light and shade, and the grand and simple pose and expression of the figures.

Now. the work of these frescoes was divided lietween master and pupils, the duty of the master being to make the sketch, mix the colours, and paint the prominent features on the wall, whilst the details and the great bulk of the work was done by the pupils, and by this means they acquired a practical and perfect knowledge of their art. Thus. Alessandro Botticelli, one of the greatest masters of fresco painting in the fifteenth century, and whose works adorn so many of the great Italian churches, had many disciples. Raphael also had a number of pupils. Hence we find in the galleries of Rome and Paris many of his original drawings, which were very often nothing more than mere sketches, whilst the fully completed pictures, as depicted by him on the walls of the Vatican, were finished by his pupils, who were often artists of no mean repute.

tn Raphael and Michael Angelo we find the Iwwi. specimens of the fresco art. The Vatican Gallery, bv Ranhael, and the Last Judgm*ut. by Michael Angelo, stand without an equal. The grandeur of conception and beauty of execution of these pictures place them, on an eminence all their own. Tn fine, these tnAgnifioent productions of the old masters In all their glorious fresflt-

ness, simplicity and beauty remain today the wonder, the glory and the envy of the artistic world. Fresco painting was quite an art in itself. Its aim was to make us forget the place ami its surroundings, and to fill the mind with religious thought. The colours employed were different from those used in ordinary painting, being stronger, brighter, more vivid and striking. In ordinary oil painting the picture was a finished work, complete in itself, and intended for all places and situations. Not so with fresco painting. These pictures belonged to the building, to the architecture, to the place, and were composed and painted in colours warranted by the place, and as the effect of the picture depended on its distance from the spectator, on the arrangement of light and shade, and so on, the colours used were always simple, bright and grand. Fresco painting is not free, as is the art of oil painting. The colours are restricted by the location. Its object was to suit art to a certain place, a certain light, a certain distance, and by making the background—that is to say, the building or church—beautiful, by making the background—that it to say, the building or church beautiful, as far as art eould do so, cause us to utterly forget the place and fill onr souls with ideas of beauty, glory, brightness, joy or saduess.

© ® ® STONE ANCHOR OF WAR - CANOE TINL'I,

When the ancestors of the Maori race arrived in New Zealand, they landed at Mokau, on the West Coast of the North Island. The stone anchor of their canoe, the Tinui, still lies on the beach, inside the bar of the river. Some years ago this stone relic was coveted by a modern Elgin, who hailed from Waitara, and he bore it away in his cutter. The Maoris, however, discovering their loss, made a great fuss over the matter, and went to law over it, and gained their case, and the anchor was brought back again to the same spot from which it had been taken. It is in the form depicted in the sketch, and hewn out of a block of stone that is not met with on the coasts of New Zealand. The passer-by along that little visited locality might repay himself by a closer inspection of this curious relic. ® ® ® CARDINAL MORAN. The Cardinal has put himself prominently before the Australasian public through the medium of the press, his letters in the newspapers having been a fruitful source of comment and condemnation. The bust, by Nelson Illingworth, of Sydney, of which we give a reproduction, is regarded as a faithful likeness of the prelate.