SUCCESS IN ART.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8216, 21 August 1906, Page 3

SUCCESS IN ART.

It is always interesting to bear •what the successful have to say about tbeir success. S«r W. K. Richmond, / asked to give bia opinions on the qualities necessary for success in art, plaoes leisure first, 'then .impulse united to a philosophical quality of ijeasoaing; infinite patience; mostly solitude, and, when not solitary, living in an atmosphere of Art generally—that is to say, an atmosphere either of music or literature.' Sir William Richmond preaohes the virtues uf ps.tieuce aud quietness. 'lhe age, he says, IS MENTALLY DRUNK, and any thing will do for the market so long as it shrieks. Mr Johu Swan, R.A., puts first private means, sufficient at least to keep the wolf from the door and save tbe artist from tbe grinding anxiety of earning his daily bread by his art. The lion. • John Collier says the artist must begin with a little talent. A little will do because there are inHny instances of artists who have succeeded with only a small endowment. .Mr Prank Brainley, A.R.A., ranks phypicuJ health and life in ;the country high among the aids to 'success, and Mr By am Shaw is of exactly the opposite opinion to Mr Swan, lor he thinks -POVERTY IS A DECIDED ELEMENT in advancement. Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema thinks work ij the one thing needful, aud Mr W. P. Frith, R.A., puta imagination first. Sir James Linton says 'follow your natural Instinct.' and don't ro out rside it, like tho great English master who tried to paiut a plougbboy and produced a young Greek god with clothes to match. Perseverance, he says, the artist wants, unless he Ib a genius for a genius can achieve . great results without visible application, because be is , ALWAYS WORKING UNCONSCIOUSLY, observing, reasoning, and questioning. another artist gives as the seoret ' - of success natural facalty cultivated by industry. 4 1 am afraid that 1 hold views which are in a mensure rather fatalistic. Both qualities may be lendered of no effect by adverse ■ circumstances. Tbe test seed will grow in bad soil, however well jjj it • nay be ploughed in. Similarly, a . man may have tbe GIFTS OF MICHAEL ANGELO, 'and if they are not called for he will have no success. If you ask me what the best artistic soil is 1 . should say opportunity. Of tbe two qualities J have named natural faculty must always be the pre- • dominant one, for industry alone will not win success in the arts or fctbe great "professions. I am strongly of the opiniob tbat there •are Influences outside t)f the man whicb direct tbe course of hia work, and I have little faith in the saying tbat man is tbe architect of bis • own fortunes.'