A WELLINGTON ARTIST

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3182, 5 September 1917, Page 6

A WELLINGTON ARTIST

TWO PICTURES IN ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBITION. Mr. George E. Butler, art instructor at Clifton College, England, a > son of jl'r. Joseph Butler, of Wellington, and a* brother-in-law of Mr. A. F. Patersou, art dealer, of Lambton Quay, is still doing excellent work in the realm of actual art, as is shown in the "Royal Academy Pictures" just published for this year's exhibition. From this publication it is seen that Mr. Butler had two pictures hung in this year's Academy show, both large canvases, both religiously symbolical in character, and both inspired 'by tho war. One (50 inches by 15 inches) is _ entitled "The Supreme Sacrifice." It is the interior of a church in the war region. With its floor littered with straw and human beings in all sorts of grotesque shapes, it is seen that the edifice is being used as a field hospital. Tho chief figure is that 'of a young soldier, a whoso dying gaze is fixed on a crucifix of Christ, which lias been caught in a shaft of golden light shining in from a window. Tho idea is a very beautiful "one, is artistically conveyed I without exaggeration, and the subject is one that requires no flight of imagination to conceive it possible. The second and larger picture, which measures 71 indies by 56 inches, is entitled "Blood and Iron." The picturo seeks to convey the measureless disparity between- Christ and the Kaiser. The former, succouring, a woman in distress in the Hun-wasted country, whilst the proud, vain figure of the Kaiser, attended by the spectre of death,, rides by on a charger, towards a blazing city. It is one of those fanciful, semi-religious pictures that seek to prove that the Kaiser is the Anti-Christ—tho Prince ot Darkness in tho flesh. *