ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2896, 15 September 1909, Page 87

ART AND ARTISTS.

FORT ONES IN THE PAINT-BOX When J. M. W. Turner, "the fittl© Jewish-nosed man, in an ill-cut brown tailcoat, striped waistcoat, and enormous frilled ebirt," painted his glorious canvases in his squalid studio-attic and was thanklul to »3tl tiie best of them for a few fivepound notes, he little dreamed that a day would come when some of them, would find eager purchasers glad to pay a thousand pounds for every live pounds he was able to put into his pocket ; oi that, as was lately proved, his wonderful painting of the burning of the Houses of Parliament would one day realise over £13,000 — snore than a hundred times aa much as he received for it. And « it has often bean with the great magicians of the palette. They produced their immortal works for sums barely sufficient to "kesp the wolf from the door,'" while later generations have paid more for one of them chaii the artist earned with a whole lifetime of labour. —About Millet— When Jean Francois Millet, the peasantartist, first began his art career he was thankful to paint portraits at 10 or 15 francs apiece— portraits which to-day would be snapped up for thousands of pounds. When he painted his world-famous " Angehis " He was living "from hand to mouth" in a tiny cott-a-gie at Baxbizon ; and he was transported with delight at receiving £72 for k. " A year's income for a single canvas ! " he exclaimed jubilantly, as he feasted his eyes on his new-found wealth. Thirty years late this very picture fetched £23,226 at the Seerc-tan sale in Paris. Sir Joshua Reynolds was quite delighted to S3ll his portrait of "Mrs Hiddons as the Tragic Muse " for £150, considering the sum qiwte a handsome retun> for a fewweeks' work. Not long ago this canva3 was bought by a well-known dealer for the enormous sum of £17,000, and actually resold by Jiim within a. week for £5000 more. When George Romney, tho Lanc&shlie carpenter's son, had been practising his art for some years he travelled through the North of England executing likenesses at a couple of guineas each, with, occasionally, his '" bed and board " thrown in. In his more prosperous year? he considered £50 a handsome sum for one of his portraits, and this was the price actually paid for his "Georgians, Wife of Lord J. Town-send," which a short time ago was knocked down for 3150g5. Only a few years ago Gainsborough's portrait of " Frederick, Efuke of York " realised 2500g5. What the artist him-seli received for it, unfortunately, we do not know ; but we do know that it was acquired at the Bicknell sale in 1863 for 66gs, or less than a fortieth of its later value. Gainsborough s " Right Hon. Wm. Pitt," for which the artisr was paid £100, has hzen bought for 2300g3 quite, recently, and at the same ?ale two other Gainsborough can-vas-os realised 4100gs, or, lougMy, 40 times the price paid by the original purchaser. It is unfortunate that we do not know what sum Titian received for his portrait of Ariosto, which was secured a «hort time ago for £30.000 for our National Gallery-; what was tha price paid to Raphael for his Ansidei Madonna, for which the Duke of Marlboroug.li received £70,000; and what were the original prices of Van Dyok's £17,500 portrait of Charles I and of Paul Veronese's "Family of Dariu.s,' which cost us £13,650. John Crome, the Norwioii house-painter, was a proud man when he could sell one of his beautiful landscapes for any sum from £1 to £5, and he would have held his good honest sides in laughter if anyone had told him that one day a couple of his canvases, "On the Yare," would fetch £3050. —Drunkard and Genius.— And the same story is told of George

Morlsmd, drunkard and genius. And yet Moriand could pain* better when drank tnan almost «jiy of ihis rivals when sober. In his last eight - years of dissipation he produced nearly 900 paintings and more than 100? drawings; and of his paintings the greater number were snapped up by dealers — some far as little as 30s. Only the other day two of these 30s canvases found purchaser? for £660! THE ART OF MR C. E. PERUGINI. Among the many interesting features in the- September Holiday Number of the Windsor Magaaina is an appreciation of the. art of Mr C. E. Peruginay 16 of whose pictures are finely reproduced. The ooa> tributor says.: — "To the- Greeks dress was a beautiful art, acd all the pictures which, with the eighties, Mr Peeugini commenced to paint revealed that perception of line wthieh the Greeks themselves in their draperies well understood. " ' A Siesta,' now in the possession, of the Duchess of Albany, 'Dolce Far Niente,* Idle Moments,' ' Cup and Ball,' ' Tempora mutantur,' ' A Summer Shower,' • La Superba,' 'The World Forgetting,' 'Idleness/ ' Weary Waiting r — ' these,' as Mr Spielnmim wrote in an appreciative article- in the Magazine of Art, 'and hall •& hundred more, attest the skill with which Mr Perugini plays ever seriously upon the spirit of his tuneful art, in which life's shadows are never deep, wsherein the- foul or sad or painful never enters. . Mi Pexugini is the painter pa.r excellence of the siesta, the- recorder, in delicate colour and harmonious lme r of the delights, of sweet idleness — when life is yoan-g and' love is warm, ideally gracious, and— (more or f less Platonic ; when the Sybarite demands the picturing of chastened bliss, and reformed Epicurus, repentant of his gluttony, turns from his viands to fruite and flowers and tea, forswears voluptuousness of every kind ii> favour of a staid and' decorative sensualism-, in comparison with his grosser taetes deleetably austere. Mr Perugini's luxuriousness, in fact, is iea3 animal than intellectual ; purity, chastity, and virtue undefi&sd breathe from his canvases, and, in the character of some contented and exemplary Hippolytus, he is constantly revealed singing the praises of some fortunate Luoretia or happy Virginia, and for evex celebrating with respectful admiration and decorous affection the veiled ©harm of modest vestals, the innocent grace and* pretty indolence of lovable* womanhood.' " " Born in Naples, of which his people, long resident in England, were natives, as their euphonious, liquid-sounding name denotes, Charles Perugini was brought up in his adopted country tall he was between 11 and 12 yearn of age. Then, having developed great precocity in the art in which he was later to distinguish himself, he was, on the advice of Horace Vernet, one of his father's intimate friends, sent to Italy and placed under the charge of Giuseppe Bonolis to be grounded in the general principles of art, a severe course of education which embraced as subjects anatomy, architecture, perspective, modelling, drawing, and ultimately painting. " The influence of Bonolis proved stimulating to the lade natural bent, whidh was further encouraged by Giuseppe Mancinelli, the head of the Academy of Naples, under whose guidance the young Perugini next came. Then Ary Seheffer, almost at the end of his career at this time, became interested in the lad's ability, and although 'to ta&e pupils ' was no habit of his, took upon .himself the supervision of liia labcors. "By 1872 Mr Perugini was working on iris own acoount, independent, natural sigh*, fully developed, having followed quickly upon his period of novitiate. In this year he exhibited in the Academy a picture which earned for him considerable kudos, entitled ' x*laying at Work.' 'A Cup of Tea' belongs to the seventies, so too do ' The Rivals,' ' Finishing Touches,' ' Sweet Lavender,' and ' A Labour of Love.' " With the eighties we find Mr Perugini firmly established under the '■nftuence of that particular genre, which we have come to consider as inimical to modern sensationalism, showing himself entirely subject to the inspiration of the earlier age. "Mr Perugini married Kate, the youngest daughter of Charles Dickens, herself an artist of great charm, whose ' Songs Without Words.' ' An Impartial Audience,' 'Sympathy,' and a vast number of well-executed portraits of children have firmly established her as a painter in popular favour. The homo of the two, m Victoria road, Kensington, is s monument to their successful collaboration in a different form of art. It is a house of no pretension, just a detached villa, erected when Kensington was a London suburb, and once in the poseession of Barlow, the engraver, whose workshop is now converted into a drawing room, and whose billiard room has been made into a studio, rooms which, in their new form, surprise by thcu harmony and that integrity of taste which unites variety. It is only by the promptings of an artificial afterthought, the child of curiosity, that one look'? round the rooms to note the separate pieces of furniture, the soft, 'ustroushued Persian rugs, the sombre tapestiries, the subdue-d-in-colour brocades that go so congruously to form a whole of such a high level of taste. The circumstance of both husband and wife's great friendship with

J Sir John Everett Millais is illustrated by that great artisf » fin© portrait of Mia Perugini .which bangs in the' studio. "In jsoch 3ura>onddngs and amongsb many friends we leave the subject of- our artiek,. who has passed his life in a em* , tamed and streuous- effort feo capture beaafcy t t and who has not failed in his attempt."