MELBOURNE EXHIBITION. PICTURES FROM NEW ZEALAND.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 312, 31 October 1888, Page 4

MELBOURNE EXHIBITION. PICTURES FROM NEW ZEALAND.

Miss E. Rowan exhibits twenty watercolour drawings of the most characteristic flora of these islands. None of the pictures arc numbered, and they aro not hung in a good light. We may tingle out Nos. 82 and 83, and the soriea numbered from 90 to 95 as conspicuous examples of choice workmanship and delicate detail. Twenty-five fiold sketches, or rapid memoranda in colour, of New Zealand scenery, by Mr E. A. Chapman, oorvo to give one a uoocl idea of the moie salient and striking features of a country which is quite bin generis. In some instances the localities depicted lie altogether outside the beaten track ot tourists. JVIr W M. Hodgkins has devoted himself to the West Coast Sounds more particulai ly, and sonds twenty sketches ot these ; five in sepia, and the rest in colour. They denote a fine sense of the picturesque on the part of the artist, and while only professing 1 to be sketches, they possess just enough detail to tender them highly efl'ecthe. Those which arc most notable in this iespect arc the Valley of the Hookei , Preservation Inlet, Pembroke Peak, a May Morning in Mil lord Sound, and a Peak in Doubtful Sound, Two larger diawings from the same pencil are historically interesting. One lepiesents Tusinaii'h encounter with the Natives in Massacre Bay in 1642, when three of the crew of the Zee llaan woie murdered by the Maoris while on their way to warn the people on board the Ileeniskirk of their danger: the other pictuie showing us the Resolution, commanded by Captain Cook, cnteringDusky Bayin March, 1773. Mr John Gully could scarcely be represented by worthiei examples ot his pencil than are supplied by the two huge drawings of the north and south beaches of the Kaikoutas, on the East Coast of the Middle Island — the lir.st with its pictuiesque foieground, its crescent-shaped ba\ , and its grand range of snow-clad mountains using up from the edge of the sea : and the second with its long rollers breaking in suit upon the curved beach, and the low -lying clouds resting on the summit oi the range which occupies the centre of the picture. The South Fiord, Lake Te Anau, and its companion picture aie full of warmth and sunshine ; and in 203 and 206 the artibt has> shown u s the same scene under two skilfully contrasted aspects the mists of early morning rising from a lake and h ing in horizontal layers against a mountain range, in the iirst instance, and the glow ot sunset fading fiom the landscape in the second. In five other graphic transcripts ot lake, mountain, sea bhore, and forest scenery, from the same skilful hand, Mr Gully shows that his pencil has lost none of its accustomed brilliancy of touch, and there is a rouch of tiue poetry in his picture of the icy peaks of Mount Cook glittering in the light of the rising sun. MrJ.C. Richmond exhibits a \ iew of Shelly Beach, Auckland, agieeably transuarenfc in colour and pearly m atmosphere ; and in a capital panoramic pictuie ot Blind Bay he has treated a difficult subject with conspicuous success. The composition con veys an impressive sense of distance, and the warm lucid atmosphere, and the far-oil mountain ridges with their stainless coronals of snow, are capitally rendered. Both these artists appear to have found a disciple in Miss Jenny Wimpeiib, ot Dunedin, who exhibits thiee laige landscapes, strong in colour, vigorous in chawing, and patient in workmanship, not free from defects, but containing much good performance while disclosincr high promise. Her best qualities are most ob\iously displayed, we think, in the picture entitled 'Acioss the Maich.' A certain masculine strength is perceptible also in some parts of Miss Rosa Budden's " Cieek at Devils Cully," but her "Group ot Roses " appears to us to indicate a special talent for flower painting, worth \ ot being assiduously cultivated ; and this impression is confirmed when we come to examine the nature oi the work in her " Group of Sunflowers." Mr C. f). Bairaud has chosen for his subjects many of the remarkable freaks of Nature in the country of the hot lakes, and shows us, among other scenes, what ii'-ed to be know as the Blue Lake, as it appeared bctoie the eiuption ot Taiaweia ; a geneial view ot the tei races, and of that volcano, and the lower basin of the White Terrace at Rotomahana. Among tho giander objectb upon which he lias exeicised his pencil arc Mount Pembioke from Harrisons Co\e, Milfoid Sound, and Mount Cook from the mountains overlooking the Tasman. Mr A. W. Walsh's ' Evening in the Otago Pa.«& ' and Mr F. Wrights tin cc landscapes aie noticeable tor the boldness of their brush work ; while there is no little promi&c in the drawings of the Misbes Minna and Nora Gardner, and in jhe 'Study of a Head ' by Miss Kate Speirey. The oil paintings, do not, as a geneial rule, reach the same high standaul as the watcr-coloui drawings. Some of them — as, forexample, Mr James Peele's " Bush Track, Hokitika," his "Afterglow," " Biich Forest," " West Coast Road," and " Otira Gotge" — denote a nice sense of the pictuiesrjue, combined with an earnest eftoit to represent what he teels and sees in Nature; but some of hib methods of expression betiay imperfectness and inexperience, and theic i* so much that is good in the fiist of these pictures, and in his " Mahinapoua River," that, as it appears to us, he only wants putting on the light road in oidei to make his mark as a landscape painter, nicy of the soil. If Mr Shei rill should have an opportunity of studying Schenck's 'Anguish' in our National Gallery, we think it would enable him to perceive, and pei haps to con ect, the more obA ions defects in his ' Victim of the Keas.' Mi J. Oibb's ' Oyster Dredging ' btrikes us as the best sea piece in this collection of oil paintings ; and Mr A. H. Gear's * Fellow of Infinite Jest ' is the figure picture which seems to attiact most attention ; while the same compliment is paid to Mr L. J. Steele's 'Story of a Saddle,' among tho (janre compositions, representing, as it does, a d\ ing bu«hman disclosing a sensational incident in his career to an astonished companion seated by the side of a stretcher in a bush hut. Of the four landscapes by Mr T. L. Drummond, "The Shores of the Manukau " strikes us as being the most artistic ; while the best passages in the " Rain Clouds on the flunua Ranges " and in the " Beach, Waiwera," are the skies in each, which are freely and skilfully handled. Among the pictures by Miss E. Kate Sperrey, the "Italian Goat Herd" is the one which contains indications of the greatest promise, and the touch is masculine in its strength. The face ot the boy in 'Leaving Homo' is also good — sufficiently so, indeed, as almost to atone for the bad drawing and feeble execution of the rest of the pictuie. Mr J, Douglas Moultray contributes three large views of the Sounds on tho west coast of New Zealand, all of which have found an appreciative purchaser, and three small landscapes. Mr E. W. Paten's ' Bush Scene on tho Upper Wanganui conveys a good idea of tho vegetation in that region ; while Mr G. Shorrifl's panoramic view of 'The Land of the Moa,' from the head of Lake

Wakatipu, takes in a great variety of im posing objects, and embrace 3 a wide extent of country. On looking through the catalogue we observe that there are 158 oil paintings and 140 watei -colour drawings exhibited in the New Zealand Court, and that the cxhibitois are about fifty in numbor, &howing that there is a strong disposition to cultivate the pictorial art iv that colony, as also much artistic ability, although some of it rinds very crude and unskilful expression at present for want of sound and bysteinalic technical instiuction. But when this is forthcoming, we are dispo&ed to think a distinctive and worthy school ot landscape painting will arise in the "Great Britain ot the South." No country can piesenfc a more splendid variety of subjectb tor the payM<ii->le to exercise hi& pencil upon.— "Al-oup."