THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION AT SYDNEY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5825, 29 November 1879, Page 3

THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION AT SYDNEY.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) Exhibition matters are progressing anything but satisfactorily, the exhibitors and the Commissioners being at issue as regards the system proposed for the selection of judges. How it will end is only to be surmised. It promises well for disagreeables. The fine arts gallery is the great attraction at the present moment, and this department is visited daily by eve y lover of art. It is hard to judge what the place will look like when finished, but as far as it is gone on with no greater muddle could have been possibly conceived by the number of cooks who have had a hand in spoiling the, broth. As I told you iu one'of my former letters £SOOO was to be spent upon a picture galle y. This amount will not caver the expense, and what have we got for the omlay ? I will tell you. A building divided off into courts, with a light so high that it is almost impossible to get a tolerable view of any one picture. The very entrance is into a small compartment devoted to works of French artists, one of which, a picture of very great merit, as regards the painting, and very large in size, is placed over the door, where it is out of sight, and other pictures which should be on the line—(it is a great question in'my mind if any of the numerous heads of the arrangement know what is meant by 44 on the line”) —are placed so high that you cannot get a look at them, in fact the only comparison that can be drawn as to the hanging of the pictures is that it attempted To accomplish, after the manner of the 44 fliggiedepiggledians,” ' so ‘ graphically described in 44 My Uncle the Curate” or the 44 Country Curate,” I forget which ; —but the cooks have started to build from the apex downwards, and they have succeeded. Only fancy the commissioners actually building a whole compart- : ment of the Fine Arts Gallery for a Yienese picture dealer to exhibit his stock in. This not only’ saves the enterprising gentleman his rent, but gives him an opportunity that is vouchsafed to no other exhibitor. Having had his name added to the list of the Austrian Commissioners may in some measure account for this preponderance of favoritism. Realise yourself what au Exhibition we might have had, provided that every tradesman who kept a shop was allowed a court for himself wherein to exhibit his whole stock; with prices affixed, .Sydney would not have been large enough- for the- building. Let the Victorians in the picture trade be iu time and secure courts for themselves in the . forthcoming Melbourne Exhibition (that is if the Melbourne Commissioners are as pliable as ours), and no doubt they will get them. Well, the fine arts people here are ridden by a couple of 44 old men of the sea,’’ in the shape of two gentlemen who, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, deserve the 44 thanks of the community.” They are on what is called the hanging committee, X believe. Be this as it may, I know that if the committee had been hanging some time time since, the pictures would have stood a chance of being properly hung. These two gentlemen are unquestionably devoted to art, which devotion, ho wever* is not a little mixed with a certain per centage of egotism, I should assay the specimens 75 per cent, egotism, 5 per cent, knowledge, and the balance of 20 per cent, what is vulgarly termed “ cheek.” It is wonderful how all these little jobs are perpetrated. The cricketers from the public offices wanted their whole salaries allowed whilst absent from their duties, because they had been suooessfulat their little game in England, and it is, presumed that these learned savants, or one of them who is in the Government service, will naturally look forward to the receipt of some honorarium for the display of his consummate-knowledge of how 44 not to do it.” What has become of the Mr. Evans who was sent out from England to hang the pictures 1 His name is not quoted by the papers here. I simply suppose he has been shelved. Dr. Hector asked a pertinent question of the Fine Arts Committee, as to whether the pictures contributed by New Zealand were to be placed in the Fine Arts Gallery, that is' according to the reports in the Sydney Morning Herald, but in the Evening News it.is ’stated that he forwarded a request that the pictures might remain in the New Zealand Court. I do not think the latter’s version can be the correct one, as it is one of the standing disgraces of the arrangements made by the Commissioners that no provision has been made for the exhibition of the works of colonial artists as a collection. Now, what I want to know is, why the unsold works of English and Continental artists, and a picture dealer’s stock, should have a building oon : struoted at a great outlay, and colonial artists should be excluded therefrom ? By-the-by, this is not exactly the truth ; some few such works have found a place in a room devoted to architectural drawings. Notably two charcoal drawings by one of the members of the Advisory Committee on Art, and two watercolor drawings by one of the members of the Fine Arts Committee (these are not hung too high you may depend), and some few others. Three are three of John Martin’s pictures, which are absolutely elevated to so great-a height that all conception of their merit can only be arrived at. by the process of borrowing a long ladder and placing the same at the opposite side of the room, acoording to which picture you desire to examine, and elevating yourself to the proper position to view.’ These three pictures are placed in the room set apart for the water colors ; in the French; court (art gallery) the most conspicuous object, and the one occupying the best space at the disposal of the hanging committee, is a map of Africa—very large and very exact no doubt, but it does not happen to be an oil painting, neither has it the merit of being a work of art, further than that it represents au amount of patience, geographical knowledge, and elaborate nomenclature, that should commend the draughtsman for the gold medal. The courts, or. ather the centres of the courts, Have been ornamented with an arrangement of trophies, coats of arms, and flags, and soma long, palm leaves, &o. These are really well grouped, and provided the pictures hk3 been equally well arranged there would’-not be much to grumble at. j have heard upon credible authority that two hundred cases ‘of pictures. Remain unpacked,.

there not being space to exhibit them ; they are . to go .on to Melbourne for exhibition there next year. Speaking of Melbourne—what a lesson the Victorians have an opportunity of getting by heart ! They will, by the time the Sydney Garden Palace ceases to be the eighth wonder of the world, learn that, however good the exhibits may be, confusion in the grouping is sure to end in confusion and dissatisfaction. There is one peculiarity of the French school that requires more than a casual notice. I allude to the number of nude figures amongst the painti gs. There is no doubt as to there representing nature, but I can say positively that where these works are wanting is in respect to “tig leaves," and that if I were caught selling photographs of such works of art in this enlightened colony I doubt very much if I would get off with less thau three months, as a sort of caution, you know. It would be all very well to plead that these were fine art productions. The learned Dogberries in office understand as much or little of these matters as the “ maggot bites.” I remember the time when the late Hon. John Thomas Smith, thrice Mayor of Melbourne, was going to prosecute a tradesman for exhibiting in his window an engraving of the “ Venus de Medici” as an indecent picture. What would he have said if he had been spared to see the pictures in. the French Court ? Her Most , Gracious Majesty the Queen has lent us four of her pictures. One is a copy of the Royal Family in 1857, comprising portraits of her Majesty, Prince Albert, the Princess Royal, and the Prince of Wales, after Winterhalter, by Siguor Belli. This is a copy, and not by any means a good one. What I wi-di to convey by this observation is that it gives you no idea of the wonderful power of Winterhalter as a portrait painter, to those who have seen his celebrated picture of the late Dowager Duchess of Sutherland, at Trentham, in Staffordshire, which is probably the finest portrait of the most beautiful of England’s beauties ; the copy of the Royal Family is simply a farce. The Marriage of H.R. H. the Prince of Wales, at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, lOtb March, 1861, by W. P. Frith, R.A., is a picture of another calibre. This is a work of art indeed, a d well worthy of the artist; but here again the hanging of the picture is to be condemned ; it is placed too low, so that one loses the idea of the perspective of the chapel, and all the portraits of the dignitaries present have the appearance of being too near to the spectator, you want to stand a considerable distance off to be enabled to grasp the whole work at a glance. The picture of the Procession to St. Paul's Cathedral on Thanksgiving Day, 27th February, 1872, is by N. Chevalier, and is not a taking production ; it is very clever, but has the demerit of all Chevalier’s oil pictures—his figures are all too tall. But as we have no Turners or Robertses uow-a-days, we must be content to put up with and admire the works of such men who are capable of grouping numerous figures with some degree of artistic taste. The picture of the Ceremony of the Opening of the International Exhibition at Vienna, 1873, by the same artist, lent by H.R. H. the Prince of Wales, is a better production, but here again the height of the principal figures is too great, although the grouping is. much superior. The painting contains more than one hundred portraits, amongst which can be recognised many crowned heads and noted personages of European celebrity. It was my intention to give you a list of the principal exhibits in the Fins Arts Gallery, but I must perforce wait until the catalogue is prepared, which I am given to understand may be published prior to the close of the Exhibition.