AN AMUSING ART CRITIC.

Kumara Times, Issue 963, 31 October 1879, Page 3

AN AMUSING ART CRITIC.

The following amusing evidence in an assault case will doubtless interest 1 many of our readers :

"Your charge against Mr Barker, the artist here," said the Magistrate, "is assault and battery, I believe?" " Yes, sir." '■■ " And your name is-: " " Potts. I am art critic of the "Weekly Spy." " State vour cas^."

"I called at Mr Barker's studio on his invitation to see his great picture, just finished, of « George Washington cutting down the cherry tiee with his hatchet., Mr Barker was expecting to sell it to Government for twenty pounds. He aeked me what I thought of it, and after I had pointed out liis mistake in the handle of the hatchet being twice as thick as the trse, aud in turning the head of the hatchet round, so that George was' cutting the tree down with the. hammer end, I asked him why he foreshortened George's leg so as to make it look as it? his left foot was upon the mountain on the other Bide of the l'-iver."

"Did Mr Barker take in kindly?" asked, the justice. "Well, he looked a little glum: that's all. And then when I asked him why he put a guinea pig up in the tree s and why he painted the guineapig with horns, lie snid that it was not a guinea-pig, but a cw, and that it was not in the tree, hut in the background. Then -I said if I had been painting George Washington I should not have given him the complexion of a salmon-brick ; I should not have given bin two thumbs on each ha:>d; and I should have tried not to slew his right eye around so that he could see around the back of his head to his left ear. And Backer said, 'Oh wouldn't you V Sarcastic, your Honor. And I said, ' No, I wouldn't: and I wouldn't have painted oak leaves on cherry tree, and I wouldn't have left the spectatnin doubt as to whether the figure off by the woods was a factory chimnev, or a steamboat, or George Washington's father taking a smoke.'"

"Which was it?" asked the magistrate.

" I don't know. Nobody will ever know. So Barker asked me what I'd advise him to do, and I told him I thought his best chance was to abandon the Washington idea, and to fix the thing up somehow to represent the ' Boy who stood on the burning deck.' I told him he might paint the grass red to represent the flames, and daub over the tree so's it. would look like the mast, and pull George's foot to this side of the river so's.it would rest somewhere on the. burning deck, and maybe he might reconstruct that factory chimney, or whatever it was, and make it the captain, while he could arrange the to do for th'-s caot;tiii\s"<!o" : ' " hid he agree ?" " He said the idea didn't strike him. So then I suggested that he might turn it into Columbus discovering America. Let George stand for Columbus, and the tree be turned into a native, and the hatchet made to answer for a flag,

! while the mountain in the background would answer for the rolling billows of the ocean. He said he'd be hanged it if should. So I mentioned that it might perhaps, pass for the excutiou of Mary, Queen of Scots. Put George in black for the headsman, bend over the tree and put a frock on it for Mary, let the hatchet stand, and work in the guineapig and the factory chimney as mourners. But Barker said there would be somebody worse hurt than Mai'y, Queen of Scots, if I kept on." " Didn't like it, hey T " I suppose not. And T said that while I did not want to force upon him, I would say, if my opinion were asked, that the best hope of that picture would be to make it a representation of the Deluge. Building an ark around George, put a shirt on him, and call him Noah, crowd in other animals with the guiuea-pig, let the factory chimney do for Mount Ararat, and the tree for the stove-pipe projecting from the roof of the ark. Just has I had got the words out of my month, Barker knocked mo clean through the picture. My head tore out Washington's near leg, and my right foot carried away about four miles of the river. We had it over and over on the floor for a while and finally Barker whipped. I want to take the law of him in the interest of justice and higb art." So Barker was bound over, and Mr Potts went along to the office of the Spy to write his criticism.

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