SENSATIONAL WAR PICTURES.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 3, Issue 251, 27 November 1914, Page 1 (Supplement)

SENSATIONAL WAR PICTURES.

PAINTING* WHICH WILL LIVE

When tUo Royal Academy of 1871 i* was IfciUe tnoafla* tiwt one Sctara on its wswis woiud draw thj miMW «az« «R *•»« summer often to ib* exclusion of every other canvas. Hut such was the fact The W*w* *m bv a young lady, Miss Elizabeth L'homMon, afterwards Lady Butler, and ister to another lady of great talent, Sirs. Meynell, the. poetess The picure was the famous " Roll Call, and •epreeented the decimated regiment rfter * .battle to ww to heir nam*. Many people shed tears as W gawd at this pathetic» P*c*«». vhioh brought horn© to the most callous leart the horrors of war. It was said ;hat the selection committee of tne t A broke into cheers when the puure'was carried in for their inspection ,nd well they might. It was engraved ,nd tens of thousands of copies were old. That young girl had made her ame at one stroke. But sh* did not rest cor tent with his first .triumph. At Jens: two other rictuires from her brash in later years Irew all eyes. Each had a famous cry or its title. One was "Floreat Gtona! » ami the other "Scotland tor frer'" and both were apropos of iami,us stories of heroism. In 1887 the Trwwrivxl had been annexed and three •cars later the battles of Lauig s Neck nd Majuba Hill were fought In the ormer battle the adjutant of the 58th, ,n Old Etonian, had his horer. shot nnicr him, but Elwes. another Eton boy, houted to him: "Come along, Monck. •Tdrea* Btona!"-the old school cry-r we must be in the first rank." Scareey liad these words left his lips when ie was struck by a shot and fell dead, rords attributed to Wellington that the f that is the spirit of Etonians the Sattle of Waterloo was won on the (laying fields of Eton may not be very ridVof the mark. Only they ought o include Harrow and Rugby and Wuihester, and many other schools of leser note.

"SCOTLAND FOREVER!" On the afternoon of Waterloo th« 12nd Highlanders, reduced to wan© M nen, found it necessary to charge » olumn of th© enomy which to coming lown upon them numbering about hroe thousand. The Scot*. Greys had *eu placed to the left, in reserve, ["hey joined in Che chargo,, •*« t»oilon Highlanders opening their ranks to et them through, many of them oatchng at the stirrup straps of their nounted countrymen, and with the cry Scotland tai Ev«*" went 'together mo the charge. The French column was, nveloped in smoke, and though they rere expecting a charge they thought rom the sound of the musketry that t «as infantry only. lh* Eh«* of th» amous Greys was coo much for them nd they vtw hurled back in contusion. 'hat is the famous charge which lnspud Lady Butler.to paint her famous picure. , Which is the most popular war pioure ever painty in Britain!' lhai ,-onld seem to be a difficult question, ut if the number of prints to be eeeti ■[ cottage and mansion forty years ago, nd even at this moment, is any enterm of popularity the crown must be iven to Sir Noel" Paton's pathetic oauas "The Return from tbo Oronea.' Vho does not know the picture? It hows the return to his cottage of 11 orporal of the Fusilier Guards that edoubtable regiment which so distuy uished itself in the battle on th* leights of th© Alma and ai Inkeinan! With torn and niform, broken boots and one emptv keve, his head bandaged and with a vvelvemonth beard on his chin, he sits -ith closed **ye3 whilst his bonny wile, *>king a mere girl now to her prenuv urelv aged hueband, kneels at his feet nd claSb his waist. His old mother i her mob cap weeps silently on his boulder. A trophy of victory, a litis, ion helmet, lies on the brick floor at is side. If there is a better known -ar idyll in paint than tine wo would ke to hear of it.

"THE SUNKEN ROAD AT WATERLOO."

"The Sunken Road at Waterloo was •picture which stared visitors to House soin© yoars ago bv its errible realism. Victo Hugo in Les liserables" gives the account which was he inspiration of the artist. Napoleon j„l ordered a charge of throe thousand ve Hundred Cuirassiers upon the Bntsh Infantry, and they were mrandmg cross the Plain to do us b.dding. Now let Hugo finish the fetory. 'All t onco came the tragedy. Arrived on ho ridge, wild, furious, and running 0 the annihilation of the English nuaros, the Cuirassiers saw between hem and the enemy a diui-a. 8« vet was the sunken road of Ohaiu. ••l t was a frightful moment, Thai* . M the ravine, unlooked-for, gaping, eforo their horses' feet, two tathorn* eLp between its banks, lb? «W«* St pushed in the first, the third ishetl in tho second. Ih© horses .«; ari fell backward, struggled with theu iit in the air, heading up and overJninc (their 'riders. There was no SXr to retrc*tj the whole column ■** but a projectile; the momentum atiered to crush the. English crushed i, French. The Pitiless ravine still "®J till it was filled. Riders, horses, Xd " pell-mell, mangling ach other, making common flcsTi in iis culf; and when the grave was ful 1 men the rest rode over thorn and 2V° After the battle it is saW thousand horses and fifteen huh I A men were found i» /Tie -sunken 1 But many had hj: en thrown there St probably. But even «o.there are of war bo tragical.

TTTF MOST FAMOUS BATTLE 1 ' PICTURE. To t bo tons of thousands of nil na • who i>n» throng the Palace ot rommonlv called the J eSln ' of Parliament, everv Saitulrdaj ""'most ftSS Picture of a battloSiip be world is tlioUuspw© "Inch

fills tho whole side of 0110 of the anterooms to the House of Lords. It is untitled "The Meeting of Weliiugcoii and Blucher after -fclie battle of Waterloo." There sit the two generals on Horseback shaking hands in silence under tire ruined, blackened walls of Hougoraont, where some of the fiercest lighting had taken place, tho whole foreground being gCTCwn with dead and wounded men. The figures are nearly twice life-size.

the King has many war pictures, including Lady Butler's famous " Roll Call," but there is a picture hanging in Apsley House, the Duke cf Wellington's town mansion at Hydo Park Corner, which could not hang in a more appropriate place. It is Wilkie's splendid canvas, "Chelsea Pensioners Ro ceiving the News of Waterloo." In die middle of the roadway opposite the jld "Duke of York Tavern" are seated -t a deal table some Chelsea Pensionel's smoking and drinking with their young comrades of the guards. A huzzar orderly has just ridden Up with a copy of the "Gazette." and one of the old fellows is reading it aloud to th<> i.:hers. It i» the news of that glorious victory in little Belgium ,a hundred wars ago. The picture is full of life and colour, and the many side-shows which the great Scottish master loved to paint. But it is a scene which will Ik> repeated in all its joy and exultation if the enemy of a hundred years ago shall prove victor alongside our own gallant troops and the nlucky Belgian* in a struggle beside which Waterloo was but a. bit of child',- play.