THE ALPS IN WATER-COLOUR.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20169, 23 February 1931, Page 18

THE ALPS IN WATER-COLOUR.

- T* , ENGLISH ARTIST'S WORK. SKETCHING AT FROZEN ALTITUDES. Mr Alan C. Browne, a Wigan artist, whose water-colours of New Zealand alpine Bcenea wero displayed in the "Walker. Art Gallery, Liverpool", last "year, has proved Ijhat it win# worth -his while to climb 8000 ft. and," waist-deep "in Bnow, to gain thrilling experiences as •part of his inspiration to paint what have" been described in; England as '■remarkable pictures." : Several of Mr Browne's most ■ successful' water-colours wert sketched at altitudes varying from 's6ooft to almost 8000 ft. One, "Morning, High Peaks, New Zealand,'/ was painted it .the snow summit of Mt. . Moltke. Others'wet® sketched'five and a half miles up -the Franz Josef Glacier. Twenty of his smaller woiks H were done- during a tramp of 200 miles down the-West'Coast of . the Sooth Island from the Waiho Gorge to Lake Wanaka. Where the Xea i? King. t But it was on the peaks of the Alps that Mr Browne maintained a glowing inspiration, even "whilst he was painting his pictures the paint froze on his . brushes." Here/are excerpts from his own deSpri]itioft of thrilling experiences. \ "It was May. Five miles pp the JPrapz Glacier, afran* altitude "of l nearly 6000 ft, two .men were erecting « a new Aimer Hut in place of the little old 7 x 8 foot bivouac previously used i at that point as a climbing .base. At , any time now. tho first winter snow might iall and make impossible the 1 work I wanted to do tltere. There was I no time to .be lost, ... ] ' "The..panobsina at that height in a « world of perpetual snow can be . imagined.. Not a sound breaks the , silence, save' .when some .huge pinnacle of ice, weighing hundreds of tons, " slowly topples ; and falls.with a roar on i to the glacier below. Not a vestige of ' green is' to be seen, not a leaf nor a blade of'grass.; ; Not a living thing is tiere Save a ; bedraggled, kea (mountain parrot) that follows like a. lonely spirit i seeking company in the snow. 1 a >. "To the east lie .the jagged Stirling Bocks;,to the west, across• the glacier, J are great jJeaks of Eo t on -and Bismark eight} and nine thousand feet t high; to the south, over five miles,of j snovriields, a long-line of peaks.on the a .main. divide tower*to a height of ten, eleven,, and twelve thousand feet; and * ito" the iorth tfce eye travels away d,wn f the great faff of the glacier to the river- a bed .and the sea,' beyond. > ■ "The sun dipped beliiiijfe a peak. We turned in. That night the sijow came, "We nailed up the windows, got in a supply of ice, lashed 'a great wooden c batten across the"'door, and turned in c again. - It was the beginning of the * winter snows. , "V 'Wor three days and three nights' it C snowed blindingly, the. wind howled and 1 shrieked, irhile the hut trembled and shook arid tore at,its anchoring wifes on that ridge 800 feet'above the ice." * • "For three'days and three nights we lay in our bunks fully clothed, taking it. in turn to get out and light the old primps, melt the * ice, and cook more „ beans or make more thigk soup. ' The whols time we burnt'candles on the window ledges to keep a small space of glass free from the, freezing, drifting ' snow and ice; and the snow tore in at the cracks, under thje door> through unseen cracks in, the, walls, and' swirled round the room till we in our bunks » were ;nounds of snow, our boots on the floor frozen stiff, and the food on the table \tnrecognisable, beneath an undulating carpet of soft white powder; , t ;'i ;; . >•,■■■:' ... : '- - "Each day' I worked, waist -deep in snow, wrapped in blankets and oilskins, woollen helinet, and and the wind cut and. the paint froze on the brush.,, Y. „ , . / "On the tenth day the'sky was black again, fresh snow began to fall, the great peaks on the divide plastered over and disappeared from sight. The food was practically, done, and for a day • there had been no methylated spirits to ■tart the.primus. ;• ' ;. ~"1 packed my- swag, battened ..up the door and windows, and made for home. "But.- I had my sketches—three of. them." , _