ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 622, 27 September 1909, Page 8

ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS.

CITY'S NEED OF A GALLERY. OPENING OF THE TWENTY-FIRST EXHIBITION. There was a large. gathering at tho Art Gallery, on Saturday afternoon, when the twenty-first annual exhibition of the New. Zealand Academy of Fine Arts was opened by tho Mayor, Dr. Newman. Among thoso present were the Hon. G. Fowlds,' Minister for Education, nearly all the members of tho Council of. the Academy, and many of the artists exhibiting.

_The president of the Academy, Mr. H. S. Warden, who presided, referred to the fact that the Academy had this year, attained its majority, and hnefly sketched the history of the society. It had set out with three objects in view -.—First, to assist artists in exhibiting their pictures; second, to be of help to art students in the'city; and, third, to provide a building where exhibitions could be held: And now it was their object to maintain a permanent collection of pictures, which would be of the greatest value to art students, and to the citizens generally.' The establishment of' such a coflectioh' was not comprised in the original ideas of the society, but they had shouldered the responsibility,, and had done their best. . They had now forty-fpur pictures representing the various schools of art, which would form a very good beginning for a.public art;gallery, ; Dr. Nowman said he had hopsd that the president would forget to ask tho council for £24,000, and he would now suggest-that as the 'Hon. y Mr. Fowlds was present, with 1 millions'at his.back, the council should'take the opportunity of asking the Government to endow a National Art Gallery-worthy of the Empire .City. He was very glad tb> notice that the impressionist school was hardly represented on. the walls of this exhibition,that it, was apparently dying out of New Zealand.' He had no admiration for that school, which he,regarded as an entirely artificial one.' When he had last been, in England he had visited as many-galleries and art.exhibitions as he could, mainly to judge for himself the effect, that this,school was having on art, and the quality'. 6f ; work produced by the impressionists.; He was -glad' ts 'coma -to the. conclusion that theirs was only a temporary aberration, : and that tho impressionists had had their day, for their work: was. to be considered,onlyas an excrescence: on, modern .art. Raphael had said' something like this, that'•'. 'an. artist should not try., to paint nature,, but to im-. prove, oh nature.. It could not.be done/,jit was .'a', well-known fact 'that artists, were not good critics, but..as he was not an artist he felt he could criticise. - :"■■-. .i.-'i

Tho artist's, .added the'speaker,-was ; the most; overstocked, worst-paid profession - in the world, and one reason for this was that artists.would only paint to please themselves, and, hot.the vulgar., public...- Writers' once upon a, time' took -that stand, but now they boasted of!how much.they received for their books,'; and they wrote what people wanted to read. Artists must follow suit,'and paint pictures that preased'.tho people.. No doubt they .;. would. say that. this meant. : casting pearls before swine,. butj speaking for the swine, he .begged them to do bo. If they were .to study .the tastes of the uneducated' people, they would improve that taste,! and at the sameHime profit themselves. It was of '• rio , use to paint pictures that nobody wanted, | and yet every year .scores .of them were turned .out-r-pictures that no one could conceivably.want to buy- .." .. ■ He thoughta/great many artists made mistakes in painting pictures of New Zealand thatwere in no characteristic of 'the Dominion. If. they'tfere to choose subjects with .a, bit -'of tussock'':gTbun°V: or nikau';'palms; - or' toi toi or rushes, they r would sell very quickly,, ■for' everyone would say, . '.'That's just New. Zealand.''.., Instead of this, •artists would, paint common-place pictures, or pictures of quite unfamiliar parts, and another thing was 'that'/they painted, scraps, iand; where one .would like to. have' a wide diagramatic pic-, tuns of-lake 'and mountain and. bush,. one would get only a little sketch'of a'small part, 'something that.thero/was.no.pleasTire in looking into. ..,Ho;.was..v'ery. pleased .to see. some Maori! piotures on the ■, walls. Until.' Mr. Goldie came along no 'one had succeeded in .painting any Maori, pictures that were, worth .looking at.' .Ho thoughtthere was great scope for'New-Zealand artists' in making pictures of this' magnificent race. The exhibition this: year, seemed to him to.be a very 'interesting'^ono,vand he commented .witb. /pleasure on "several, pictures that he had noticed, mentioning especially the-portrait "of ■Mr..Chapman,''by Miss Baldwin Warns..''''.

; THE PICTURES AND THE HANGINC. ':.-. \lfs&TVf. LwiiTß.)■',,',';■;■'■ '■■■ ;,:;;■;••■.;,,' !;,c, : \ v .-■'■ ,<<-f .--.<•".'— U.The collection of pictures exhibited in: the .gallery on-the coming of ago of the Academy 'is!a good one., : It more Qian maintains' in quality, and ' exceeds in quantity, the level ;tnat is looked- for in: the' society's yearly shows. The standard of - work is generally igood all'through,, though there is little that is particularly striking or that calls for con.spicuous'commendation. A great deal more 'work has been sent in: this year in all seotiohs,than has-been the .case, hitherto, noticeably inlthe:students' competition classes,and in designs for the catalosuo cover.. : ■■■In many- respects ;' the. .exhibition' is very, interesting. ..There are new names in ■ the catalogue,,::. some -.- of them re;sponsible for work of very ', good'quality, ;and ' there', is a '•' pleasant reappearance of old names, whose.temporary absence from former catalogues has. been matter for re.gret. .In a few very regrettable instances.the absence is to be noticed "of names whose ap;pearenoe used to be' constant in the corners ,of-works of ;very.great merit.. In portraiture this yoar's exhibition, is particularly strong, including; as.it does, some fine'examples, of a standard much in advance of anything seen here for /some time. : -In regard, to landscape and subject there.i 3 still;.'as always,.a marked .lack of originality of motive, and a somewhat monotonous, adherence to' the conventional in-method and• design. Black and .white remains ill the cold; shade of comparative neglect. .Applied-art has for some reason or other suffered,, : a-tocalv.check m, several branches, and there are no specimens of work in wood, leather, or beaten metals; Skilful handicraft'is, evidenced in much of the enamelling and jewellery- shown, including an interesting exhibit,by students of .the School of _ Design.v There -is one exhibit of. painted • china.! Sculpture and modelling in' clay has apparently fallen into local-disuse. •' Comparison-of the oils and water-colours leads to the: conclusion that, while individual worts;in the former medrum' oomprise the best .work in the gallery, collectively the water-colour group shows the better quality of technique.,. ~..'....,. ..... ; j ■ The duties of a selection committee in connection with a society of this kind are not light and easy; and the principal contributor totheir difficulty is the lamentable, but incontrovertible fact that there is nothing on. earth more absolutely' impossible: of.attain-, ment than a happy, reconciliation of-ideas and ideals between the'artist and the public/ (No more-convincing evidence of this regrettable condition of things could ■ bo adduced than the speech delivered at;the opening ceremony by-his Worship the Mayor.) -If these duties aro to. be- earned' out with any /conscientious sense,of responsibility, to: the artists who .make' theso exhibitions possible on tho ono hand, and on-the other liana 1 to ,tho public, whose ponce have to pay the consequent piper; thoy: should be undertaken'in an entirely different manner.from that which obtains here. It has been suggested, through.the oolumns of tho press, that an adjunctive exhibition should be hold of pictures that'have been blackballed by the selection committee.' ;In' view of the unsatisfactory constitution of.'that committee,, and the result of itslabours, the. suggestion appears to bo a particularly good one. It is absolutely grotesque that the whole of the members of a council, many of whom are chosen to-the position they occupy on account of business acumon and other qualifications entirely unconnected with any supposed knowledge of art, should bo required to sit in judgment to decide between the respective merits, of pictures, in relation- to their claims for placo in tho, exhibition. You might as well ask Mr. Van der Vcldon to act as judge at a reaper and binder triiil.* The operations of the selection com'mitteo this year appear to have boon attended with curi.oui jeeult,, Of course, it is impossible to

know anything about the quality of tho _ stuff" they have rejected, tad they occupy lit consequence a strong, if not unassailable, position, but if any of.it is worse than somo of tho examples which aro hung in prominent positions, it is difficult to imagine anyone sending it,in.'at'all." It-is an open secret that an unusually largo number of works had to bo rejected this year owing to pressure upon space, and ono is thereforo all the more, surprised to find that soveral of tho artist members of. the ..selection committee havo taken full advantago. for their own-work of the utmost space allowed by tho rules of the society. This, however, is no doubt, a question of tasto. i The lamentable failure of the hanging committee—a separate body—to justify their existence is most conspicuous. If can hardly be considered, in such' circumstances; good form for a committee of four to hang all the work of three of .their number practically on the "line." In one case the work of one member of the hanging committee and that of a favoured pupil occupies thirteen places either on or close to the coveted area of wall space. In'more than one instance good position has been allotted to' work, the hanging of which at all is an insult to the visual sense of .the community, to say. nothing of their artistic intelligence, while work of .unquestionable merit has- been " skyedi" A very noticeable disregard or misunderstanding of colour value has in many cases' been .displayed by/the committee/in their, arrangement of the relative positions of pictures, which has naturally resulted in a good deal of mutual "killing." ■ • In spite of. all, however, the exhibition is a decidedly;attractive cine, and possesses many features of special interest,, the-individual' details of which will form' the subject of future articles. ' '■'' The council of the' Academy are to be commended for the good taste displayed in the newly-distempered wall space, and for ■ their consideration of the,convenience of the pnb-' ; lie in the matter of outside'concrete.'