ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2894, 25 August 1909, Page 77

ART AND ARTISTS.

A PAINTER OF THE SEA.

— Thomas Hemy

Mr Thomas Hemy i 6 a true sailor-painter if ever man was anything. Born at sea, rocked tc . sleep by the iwaves, with the great Atlantic gaies his lullabies, the happiest days of his life spent aboard ship as boy and man, it is no strange thing that the artist in him could only be expressed through, pictures of the sea.

Even the few years he lived ashore as a boy were t-pent by the waterside, for his home was at Tynemouth-on-Tyne, within full view of the harbour.

Early in his teens he ran away from home and shipped on board a sailing vessel bound for Brazil.

Since this time, the only strong attraction the world has held for him has been the wild Jife of the sea. Art calls him in its own way, too, but not so loud and ceaselessly. As a mere child .he took to making sketches of boats and things nautical, and began to study art at Newcastle for a year or so before he decamped for bis adventures aboard ship.

This was when Mr "Henry was 16, .and for four years he scaiioa tet foot on land.

Of the 9« early <iays the artist etill retains some very vivid »ecol!ections — one of a mutiny on board his ship on the coast of India, when captain and first mate stood over tho men day and night with loaded pistols to prevent them blowing vi the bhip.

Ho next lentured to go round the Horn in an old "wind-jammer," where they got held up for two months in the dead of winter-, cold, short of provisions and coal, and all on board in danger of starvation, one of the ciew being actually found frozen at his post.

Again, he went through the terrors of another mutiny on board an American "blood ship," when the crew was 6trung up by the wrists between decks and left to reflect upon the humanity of man all nicrht. Finally one of them managed f o slip the manacles off and free liimsalf, then he rolled tome old whisky barrels underneath his pals, so that they could sit on them. After hard trying, he managed to pet them all down, and they slipped over the sido of the ship and made off ir the tlark with one of the boats.

Shipwrecks came to him, too; one in particular at dead of a bitterly cold night in mid-winter, with no lifeboats, only rafts, to crawl on to, while some of the men jumped into the breakers and were pulled ashore on a line.

Mr Heroy has «ailed the two Pacifies and Atlantics, as well as the Indian Ocean, has grown adventurously familiar with most South American ports, and can tell strange t&les, of life in many a forecastle of lawlessness in the southern seas.

Thirty or 40 years ago a mariner's life was as pioturesquely dangerous and venturesome as any penny-thriller yarn of fiction. Apprentices put on no "side" nor sporbsd brass button or gilt braid. They differed from the men only through living aft and

being credited with the distinction of "coing 10 be" ofnesrs sowe <".aj — if they proved thsrnselves capablo of bceoniir.g then.

Hsmy always- saw th;? "picture" in -every ar'\<?nture Sometimes hs iK-eel his >k<.rchbook, but more oK?n he left his impressions entirely on his memory— th? best thins: to do when the min-d is you::g; and keen with the excitarcent of early ex?2iv ence. - Coming ashore at last, he took up his art 6tv;di«3 at Antwerp, that wonderful old harbour town of- the picturesque Scheldt, wh'3re hs worked hard' at his drawing far a couple of years

By-and-bve the call of the whistling- wind proved too irresistible, and he and his brushes and p-aletre got afloat again : and so, 'twixt liff at sea and life on tho shores of it, this sailor -artist has lived and painted life as ne has 'elt it and loved it. — Pear* 6on's Magazine.

FORD MADOX BROWN.

Ford Madox Brown, the man who firet taught Dante Rosseiti to paint, was one of the most original and remarkable of th,» Victorian artists, but he never in his lifetime -achieved the popularity he deserved, or gained any sort of official or academic, recognition^ Nor did he make much money ; indeed, had it not been for the fact tha& he inherited a small property he would probably have starved. Even as it was tho straggles of this bray« and independent painter w^ro*at times terribly hard. Perhaps the darkest -time of all was the Christmas of 185*. - when Madox Brown was designing the great p ; cturo "Work." In that . moat pathetic of diaries, published a. few years ago by the painter's son-in-law, Mr William Rossetti, Madox Brown record® that two days before Christmas, 185<-, he found himself with eighteen and ninepence in hand, and three weeks to - elapse before he could expect any -more money. His wife was -ill, and on the day after Boxing Day he, too, had to stay in bed with a feverish cold ' brought on "through being out so many hours with shoes unsound in wet weather." On the day before New Year's Eve his purse was empty. Something had to be done, and Brown, putting his" pride in his pocket, packed up his dress suit, with a silk cape and a brooch belonging' to his wife, and walked 1 fjQpm Hampstead, -where he was then living, to Marylebone road. The things had to bo pawned, but the artist, with all hij courage, shirked the ordeal of the pawnshop. Hence the long walk to Marylebone, where one of his old models lived. Th« old model pawned the things, and was rewarded with a shilling, and Brown, trudged baclr to Hampstead' through the snow with the balance — eight and fourpence — in his pocket.

More pawning followed a few days later: "Emma's shawl, some ornaments, and two engravings after Claude, with the large 'Shipwreck' of Turner," on which little, group of household goods thirteen and sixpence was borrowed. But the darkest hour ie that before the dawn, mid alter this dreadful winter had passed Brown- managed' to raise come money on his little property, several small pictures were sold, and the prospects generally became brighter. "Work," .-the picture that was designed irsuch disadvantageous, .conditions, turned out a auooese, and Carlyle sat for. one of the principal figures in, the foreground. The background of "Work" represents a street at Hampstead, and Brown painted it on the spot seated in a. kind of barrow with curtains, that he designed himself, to the great amusement of the idlers of the neigh, bouxhood.

"Work" is now one of the treasured possessions of the Corporation of Manchester, to w.hich also belongs the celebrated serie* of pan-als illustrating the history of "Cot* tonopolis" that now adorn the Town Hall. Another of his bast pictures, "Th& Last of England." is in tho Birmingham Corporation Gallery; and at Millbank, in the National Gallery of British Art. hang hia "Christ Washing Peter's Feet" and "Chaucer at the Court of Edward th» Third." There is, too, at the Victorie and 1 Albert Museum a very beautiful watercolour by Madox Brown, "Elijah and tho Widow's Son."

Although he had many sympathies with the Pre-Raphaelites, Mador Brown was never actually a member of the Brotherhood. Rather was he an elder brother to the young; men — Millais, Rossetti, Holman Hunt, and the rest— whose earnest work influenced so intensely the artistic feeling of their period. Madox Brown and his wife were kindness and hospitality personifie3. "Who that ever was present at it," wrqfce Lady Burnc-Jones, "could ever forget one of their dinners, with Madox I Brown and his wife seated at either end' of a long table, and e\ - ery guest a ' welcome friend who had come to talk and to laugrh. and to listen— for listening was the attitude into which people naturally fell when in hi« company " And to enjoy the humble fare at the modest little house in Kentieh Town came Rossetti. Swinburne, William Morris, Whistler, Millais, and others of like fame. Madox Brown talked delightfully, but his curious incapacity Jo. remembering names was the joy of his friend-s. to whom 'his mistakes were an endless delight. Nothing cured him of this failing. Once, when staying at the house of William. Morris, Madox Brown wanted something brought upstairs, and took the orecaution before calling for it to ask his host the name of hie housekeeper. "Button," said Morris. Madox I Brown stepped to tho head of the stains, 'and, in' hi« clear voice, called out, "Mrs i Penny, will you ," amid th© laughter and applause of his friends. Madox Brawn . died in London in 1F93. and the "Chris. Washing Peter's Feet" in the Tate Gal lery was purchased soon after hia death b> a body of friends and admirers and pre- 1 sented to the nation.

— The £66,000 said to have been paid by Messrs Colnaghi for Holbein's portrait of "Christina, Duchess of Milan," is, with onenotable exception, probably the largest eum i ever given for a picture in England. For Raphael's "Ansidei Madonna," it will be remembered, the enormous sum of £70,000, equal to £14 a square inch, was paid come •years ago; TitianV portrait of Ariosto was secured for our National Gallery for £30,00®; any! £55,000" wae the cost of three _ other pictures in our national collection — Holbein's "Ambassadors," Yelasauez's "Admiral iPulido Pareja," and Moroni's "Italian Nobleman."

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