A GREAT PICTURE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 186, 20 October 1876, Page 11

A GREAT PICTURE.

The Woild of Art is ringing with the praises of a young lady who has painted a wonderful picture. For some months past allusions to her are frequent in the Home papers, and criticisms of the work produced by her abound. The subject chosen for the exercise of her powers by the artist in question was the never-to-be-forgotten v Charge of the Light Brigade " at Balaklava, and we clip from the ' London Tablet ' the following description of the treatment it received at her hands : The scene is laid on the Causeway Heights, where straggling in singly or by twos or threes, the remnants of the Light Brigade rally for a space. ******* Eminently natural in the grouping, with the little knot of mounted men on the left of the picture, the struggling horses, some alas riderless, breasting the hill; wounded men nursing their hurts or brooding in revenge, dead and dying around, there is one figure -which by a stroke of genius alike gives an air of reality to the composition and strikes a keynote in the heart of every onlooker. On he marches tunic unbuttoned, cross-belts loose and bloody ; where his horse has fallen he knows not, the red spray is before his eyes, his teeth are set, his dripping sword is firmly clenched in his red right hand as the other is stiffened in the energy of revenge. His comrades may call but his thoughts are down by the Fedioukine Heights, the man's soul has gone out into the fray and the madness of combat is on him. Here in a few words is the picture brought before us almost as vividly as if we had seen it with our bodily eves,

and it does not need the remainder of the fine critique from which we quote to tell us that the work is one of eminent genius. But in this description we read more than that such terms unqualified may be applied to the painting in question, for to us it is suggestive of what is indeed the truth, that the geuins which inspired this work was Catholic. The greatest works that intellect has produced in modern times, or, it may be, at any time, were fruits of the Catholic creed. Dante, says Caklyle, was but the " spokesman of the middle ages," and again he says of Shakespeare that he was the noblest product of middle-age Catholicism ; whilst to the effect of the Faith on music, painting, and sculpture, we need call on no author to testify, for it is acknowledged by the whole world. Now and then, in the books of travellers who had visited Italy, and placed on record their impressions of the great works of art to be found in the Italian galleries, we have met with regrets that the artists had not consecrated their talents to the representation of the remarkable men of their time, instead of spending their lives in producing paintings of sacred subjects ; but with these regrets we have no sympathy. The glory of the artist was not gained by the exactness with which he could copy material objects upon canvas, but rather by the capability of his mind to conceive noble ideas, and to convey them through the magic of his art to the understandings of other people. This is the true end of genius, whether the medium through which it acts be poetry, music, or painting ; and the man who would sacrifice this to the mere perpetuation of the memory of some remarkable personage would be false to his high calling. The painters whose works fill the Italian churches and galleries were Catholics ; their genius nurtured by their faith penetrated the meaning of life, and saw that Heaven alone was real ; and thus they consecrated their powers to the cons tetnplation of the true, and to the conveyance of their idea of | it to others, by the means that their peculiar talents had set at their disposal. They painted the Madonna and the Saints, and our Blessed Redeemer, and by doing so, exalted the hearts of multitudes above their earthly surroundings, and imparted to them that which formed the beauty of their own minds, and the glory of their genius, and made them the men they were. Other painters have tried for ages to imitate their works, but they have failed ; and failed because the inspiration of these men came not from without, but from within, and to paint with their brush it would be necessary to think with their thoughts, and worship with their spirit. But we believe, that in the description of the painting of the charge at Balaklava, as given in the • London Tablet,' we recognise the traces of a genius essentially Catholic, for this picture seems to have been designed to convey a just idea not of an isolated event, but of an universal truth to those who j look at it. There is nothing in it of the false hallow that is thrown round the horrible contest of nations, but the eye of the artist has seen deeply into" the thing, and read its honors and depicted them for the benefit of those not endowed with. ! a like peuetration. In the leading figure of the painting a 1 great lesson is taught, that reaches the heart and plants a principle there. "On he marches tunic unbuttoned, crossi belts loose and bloody ; where his horse has fallen he knows n(<t, the red spray is before his eyes, his teeth are set, his ! dripping sword is firmly clenched in his right hand as the other is stiffened iv the energy of revenge." The spirit of the whole thing is shown in this single figure, and a few master strokes have thrown open to our view the inmost I depths of the terrible passions provoked by war, and filled us with a dread and loathing of it ; and, perhaps, as well with, a due appreciation of the nature that is capable of so appalling a frenzy. This picture is the reverse of those seraphic faces and ! figures that grew beneath the fingers of the great Catholic artists of by-gone ages, but it has been inspired by a genius that like theirs had been nurtured by the Catholic faith, and therefore, if it does not claim the power of attracting us to holiness, it repels us at least from evil. It is Catholic art, but Catholic art diverted from its right channel, and consequently not productive of the highest results, although it has produced effects that are still most valuable. And it affords us an earnest that, when it is directed to its true object immediately, it will attain to a height as yet perhaps hardly j thought of ; for that it is to be directed to such an end is, we believe, already determined on, since Miss Thompson, | the lady who painted the picture of which we write, and who is a Catholic, has — it is announced — decided on consecrating I her talents to the representation of sacred subjects.