TWELVE WATER COLOURS OF GLACIERS IN THE PROVINCE OF CANTERBURY

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 7, Issue 2, 1 October 1974, Page 4

TWELVE WATER COLOURS OF GLACIERS IN THE PROVINCE OF CANTERBURY

Janet Paul

Julius Haast and John Gully: collaborators

On 8 February 1864 Dr Julius Haast, M.D. [!], F.G.S. 1 read a paper to the Royal Geographical Society, London. His title was Notes on the Mountains and Glaciers of the Canterbury Province, New Zealand. The President, Sir Roderick Murchison, in his prefatory address, referred to three papers of great interest from ‘the southern portion of Australasia, New Zealand’; two were by Dr. J. Hector and James McKerrow, the third being ‘a most important account of the highly interesting journeys of the provincial geologist, Dr Haast .... In the year 1861, the rivers Ashburton and Rangitata were traced by Dr. Haast to their sources in Mounts Arrowsmith and Tyndall. In 1862, the course of the River Tengawai was followed, and the mountain range crossed to Lake Tekapo, the affluents of which were traced to the Godley Glacier and Mount Darwin. Lake Pukaki was visited, and its sources to the declivities of Mount Cook ascertained; and the Naumann Range, from whence the Dobson & Hawkins take their rise and flow into Lake Ohau was explored.’ 2 The President continued to describe Haast’s comments on the features of glacial action ‘which he has thoroughly described in all its different phases, and illustrated by a series of very beautiful, coloured sketches upon a large scale. The sketches are now deposited in the archives of our Society .. .’ 3 . To which remarks the President added, in the print of his address, a footnote: ‘I earnestly hope that chromolithographic copies of these very remarkable coloured sketches of New Zealand Glaciers will be soon published. Glacialists and Alpine travellers should possess them.’ 4 But this was another pious publishing hope. No such copies were made. Instead, the ‘very remarkable coloured sketches’ remained in the archives of the Royal Geographical Society for 110 years, until 1974, when the Society offered to sell them back to the country of origin for £5,000. 5

A listener to this address might easily have thought that Julius Haast was himself the painter and may not have observed that the paintings were signed, very unobtrusively, J. Gully. In Haast’s address 6 as printed there is another reference to these watercolours: it is an editorial footnote, page 92, which reads ‘Dr Haast sent to the Society a number of well executed water-colour drawings representing the Alpine scenery of the Canterbury Province, and the following descriptions of glaciers are compiled from his explanations of the different views.’ At the time of this lecture (1864) John Gully would have been little known as a painter even in New Zealand. The ‘generous guileless’ and ‘modest’ Gully 7 was born in 1819 in Bath, England, where as a

young man he had some training as draughtsman in an engineering workshop. He came to New Zealand in 1852 and took up land in Taranaki, the setting for his earliest paintings here. Not a physically strong man, he gave up farming for clerical work in New Plymouth. He settled in Nelson in 1860 with his family. 8 H. F. Von Haast first describes Gully as ‘giving drawing lessons at Nelson College’ 9 which he did until 1863 when he was appointed draughtsman under J. C. Richmond in the Nelson Survey Office. By 1865, three paintings are listed in the official catalogue of the New Zealand Exhibition by ‘John Gully, Esq. artist & exhibitor.’

In the Haast MS papers in the Turnbull Library are a number of letters from Gully to Haast, dating from 1863 to 1886. In the earliest one we find the first evidence that Gully had worked from sketches made in the field by Haast: ‘I have been to Lake Roto Iti with Richmond and can testify to the correctness of the outline you gave me to copy when I first came to Nelson.’ 10 This must refer to sketches made by Haast soon after he was appointed by the Nelson Provincial Government to make a topographic and geological inspection of the western districts of the Nelson Province in a survey expedition with James Burnett and two Maori labourers from 8 January to 28 August 1860. 11

So Haast knew, in the first year of their acquaintance, that John Gully could interpret his accurate survey panoramas; and must have trusted the artist’s eye for atmosphere, his knowledge of South Island landscape forms and his technical competence as a watercolourist before asking him to illustrate the lecture to the Royal Geographical Society. But did Gully see the glaciers himself? Or were all these watercolours also made from Haast’s own sketches? When did Gully paint them? If they are copies from Haast’s own survey drawings how accurate is Gully’s work? Why does Von Haast’s son and biographer refer to these paintings on the walls of Latimer House, Christchurch (Haast’s new home in 1881) ? 12

The most important result of setting out to answer some of these questions was the examination of MS Papers 37 in the Library. The collection contains about 150 drawings in pencil, ink and watercolour by Haast himself. 13 The earliest dated drawing is 14 January 1860 — ‘Wairau Range’. The group covers Haast’s surveys in central Nelson, the Grey and Buller watersheds, and the Southern Alps from their Canterbury approaches from 1860 until March 1864. There is another considerable group in June 1865 around the Franz Josef Glacier, Lakes Taylor and Sumner and the Teremakau. The latest watercolours are dated March-April 1866. They are ‘Ramsay & Lyall Glaciers from Mein’s Knob’, ‘Towards sources of Rakaia & glaciers from Griffith’s hut’ and ‘Brownings Pass from first Creek above junction of Stewart’

[Harman?] Some are small, quick works, colour records of the fall or fan of a glacier, the disposition of moraines, the profile of a peak; others are careful panoramas giving compass bearings, detailing and naming peaks over such an area that the narrow ink drawing may unfold for one hundred centimetres. One is struck by Haast’s accurate eye and the speed of his work (sometimes three vast panoramic drawings will be dated on two consecutive days.) He often uses watercolour but colour he limits strictly to a cerulean blue wash for water or sky, a scrubby grey which follows the structures of rock formations, and terre verte in quick dry brush strokes to suggest the vegetation. He sometimes notes on his drawings the kind of trees growing or the line of permanent snow; very occasionally he draws a station hut or sheep yards but these he was seldom near.

We have, from the Haast/Gully correspondence, a number of references to Haast’s drawings (or more elaborate drawings made by Haast from his field sketches) 14 and, later, to photographs as sources of Gully watercolours. 15 ‘I suppose it would not be necessary to come down first, as I have no doubt that I could do any of this work in the Draughtsman Office that could be required .. ,’ 16 On 2 June 1865 Gully returns sketches to Haast and the drawings he had made from them. He goes on to tell Haast that he has sent five sketches to the Otago Exhibition; ‘One is from the peak of Mt. Cook and I have taken considerable liberty with your sketch, having supposed myself to be on the left hand spur in your drawing and rather near that bit of glacier on the left hand top corner ... ,’ 17 And again: ‘I am not a surveyor, although I can plot the survey work when sent into the office, in fact that is at present my principal occupation —I have to acknowledge the receipt of your last letter enclosing another print of the Glacier. This, with the former ones, will help me considerably until I see the Glaciers themselves and judge it with my own eyes.’ 18

Haast must have replied suggesting that Gully should come with him on an expedition and see the Glaciers for himself, because Gully writes that he cannot accept Haast’s kind offer: ‘Our present Superintendent would not listen for a moment to a proposition of 2 months leave of absence —I have a child very ill—but I will not give up the idea of doing those Glaciers some day.’ 19 Since these last letters well post-date the Glacier watercolours sent to the Royal Geographical Society, we can fairly conclude that Gully must have worked from sketches and had not seen the glaciers themselves. A later letter, 20 posted with three sketches, quite specifically confirms their collaboration: *. . . (and, by jove I have forgotten to enclose the originals) the price being, as you offered £lO.lO.0 21 ... I will send your own sketch in a letter next time!’ If further evidence were

needed Haast’s son and biographer, H. F. Von Haast, refers to ‘Gully’s pictures of the glaciers, exhibited at the Royal Geographical Society’s meeting, and Chevalier’s view of Mount Hooker ... all from Haast’s sketches .. .’ 22 The biographer also remembers these paintings hanging in the drawing room of Latimer House in Christchurch but, from his letters, it is more likely that Gully copied the original watercolours (for Haast as well as for some of his friends) , 23 Of the twelve paintings sent to illustrate the lecture it is possible to find Haast’s prototypes for eleven. In the following list, the title of Gully’s watercolour is given first and the call number, date and title of Haast’s drawings below.

1. The West Coast of the Province of Canterbury. From the northern bank of the River Grey. C97/51a Southern Alps from Grey River June 186Inscribed in German. Shows view from sea coast. Ink and water colour 11 x 49.5 cm. 2. The Ashburton Glacier. Main source of the river Ashburton. 4825 ft. C97/27 Gletscher mit Wasserfall. 14 Mai 1861 Ashburton Glacier inscribed on drawing. Ink and water colour 27 x 87 cm. 3. The Clyde Glacier. Main source of the River Clyde (Rangitata) 3762 ft C97/25 Great Clyde Glacier, real source of Rangitata. March 1861. Ink and watercolour. 4. Sources of Godley River. Classen and Godley Glaciers, 3550 ft. C97/61 Source of River Godley 24 Feb. 1862. Pencilled at base: Classen Gla.’ on left and Godley, on right. Watercolour, pencil and ink 17 x 76.5 cm. 5. On the great Godley Glacier No. 5. C97/60 From central Terminal Moraine of Great Godley Glacier, 5 March 1862. Watercolour 16 x 51 cm. C97/60a From Terminal Moraine of Great Godley Glacier 5 March, 1862. In pencil above drawing Haast has written and underlined ‘This one’. Watercolour 16.5 x 38 cm. 6. Two Waterfall Glacier. Valley of River Macaulay, 4080 ft. C97/65 Two waterfall Glacier—Macaulay River, 10 March 1862. Watercolour 16.5 x 32 cm. 7. Macaulay Glaciers 4375 ft. C97/83a Macaulay Glaciers. Sources of River Macaulay. Bearings from end of Chain line. 10 March 1862

Watercolour 17 x 43 cm. 8. Lake Pukaki 1746 ft. There is no Haast drawing to correspond with this painting. 9. The Great Tasman Glacier. From West Bank of the River Tasman. 2774 ft. C97/61a The Great Tasman Glacier, sources of the Tasman River 16 April, 1862. Watercolour, pencil 17 x 33.5 cm. 10. View of Mt. Cook and the Moorhouse Range from the Valley of the River Tasman. G97/66 View towards the sources of [?] with Mt. Cook and Moorhouse Range 18 March 1862. Watercolour 14.5 x 41 cm. 11. Mt. Cook with the Hooker Glacier from the Mueller Glacier. G97/64 Mt. Cook with Hooker Glacier from Muller Glacier 5 April 1862. Watercolour 21 x 14.5 cm. 12. The Tasman and Murchison Glaciers. From the Mt. Cook Range. C97/63 Collage of three photographs and ink on blue paper made by Haast of ‘Nordaussicht von Lindagrat’ showing Haast, Rudolf and Tasman Glaciers. [April 1862] Photographs and ink on paper.

How closely did Gully follow the drawings supplied? If one compares, for example, the two versions of the Macaulay Glaciers it can be seen that Gully follows faithfully the form of projecting rock peaks and pinnacles and keeps the general shape of the ice-field, but, in inventing foreground, subtly alters the spatial sense of Haast’s original in which the bluff on the right is so near that the viewer is closely involved with the weight and flow of the glacier itself. In Gully’s version the glacier is distanced and made only a quarter of a view, composed according to Gully’s own pictorial sensibility. His colour is richer, more varied than the abstracted, plan-like observation of the geologist which is transformed by the painter’s own observation of atmosphere and handling of tone into a more familiar ‘picture’.

This same process can be seen in the two interpretations of the Two Waterfall Glacier; but here, Gully’s invention of foreground (sharp rocks and skeletal trees on the left) and a long middle distance of valley flat, traversed by tiny figures, gives a poetic grandeur and vast sense of space to his version. He has not, in any way, distorted Haast’s facts of the shape of glacial field, in its relationship to containing peaks or its fall down the rocky escarpment, but has used his skill in handling watercolour and his sense of pictorial composition to make Haast’s drawing vividly understandable.

The four pairs illustrated show how closely Gully keeps to the essential structure of the prototypes even when he tames or enhances —with sunset glow, invented vegetation or foreground rocks, sweeping clouds or cold afternoon mist. And so to our final question: when did Gully paint these twelve watercolours? Since they were in London for exhibition by February 1864 they must have been done either in 1863 or, possibly, after April 1862 which is the latest date for any of the Haast prototype sketches. An account 24 of a row in the Committee of Supply of the Canterbury Provincial Council gives us the answer:

A sell for the Government Geologist 25 The Canterbury Government (Wise that Government of course is) Paid a certain foreign gent. To develop our resources; Which his name is Julius Haast. He’s a good geologist, And his knowledge is extensive, If we lost him he’d be missed, Keeping him though, comes expensive!

Thatcher’s rhyme voiced the prejudices of Canterbury councillors who expected a geologist to produce wealth—gold, coal seams, diamonds — men in whose view a negative finding was the equivalent of a broken contract. The Council in Committee of Supply, 29 November 1862, voiced its feelings and declared stringent opposition to paying £1125 for the expenses of the Geological Department. What had Mr. Haast done for the Province? ‘He had produced a few fossils and reptiles, and had sent down a cart-load of vegetables to feast the Christchurch philosophers ... he had been to Mount Cook and looked at the Glaciers ...’ Mr Davis of the Committee amplified his hostility to the foreign scholar whose learned reports showed that he had ‘read some books, and sucked the brains of some better men than himself. Haast’s offences were underlined by tiresome extravagance ‘.. . he had got some gentleman to furnish him with a lot of pictures to decorate his room in the Government Buildings’. The ‘gentleman’ was John Gully. We are indebted to Mr. Davis’s diatribe because Heinrich von Haast adds a footnote: ‘These pictures were twelve water-colour paintings from his [Haast’s] sketches of mountains and glaciers, and of Lake Pukaki by John Gully, drawing master at Nelson College, who was afterwards to

become one of New Zealand’s leading artists, and to whom Haast extended, from time to time, a helping hand.’ 26

So, somewhat laboriously, we have now established that these twelve watercolours purchased by the Alexander Turnbull Library Endowment Trust in 1974 were all adapted from Haast’s own drawings made on expeditions between March 1861 and April 1862, and that the set was finished before 29 November 1862. Gully, with ‘an hour and a half to spend each day on painting, had worked quickly and well.

NOTES 1 To his recently conferred Fellowship of the Geological Society should be added the honorary degree recently conferred by the Royal Wurtemberg University of Tubingen, ‘post eruditionem bene comprobatum’ in October 1862. H. F. Von Haast The Life and Times of Sir Julius Von Haast pp 230, 330 2 Journal of the Royal Geographical Society v 34 (1864) p cliii 3 Ibid p cliv 4 Idem 3 ATL File 3/1/1/4 Mar 1974 6 Journal of the Royal Geographical Society op. cit pp 87-96 7 ATL MS Papers 113/6; J. C. Richmond to W. M. Hodgkins 20 Mar and 5 Jun 1889 8 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand v 1 pp 885-6 9 Life and Times ... p 44 10 ATL MS Papers 37/68; Gully to Haast 4 May 1863 11 Report of a topographical and geological exploration of the Western Districts of the Nelson Province, New Zealand ... Nelson, 1861 12 Life and Times . . . pp 842-3 13 These drawings are now housed in the ATL Art Collection (Call No. G 97) and an inventory is available 14 For examples of Haast’s more elaborate watercolours see ATL Art Collection A 149 15 Life and Times ... p. 572. In 1869 E. P. Sealy had taken a photographer to Mt Cock 16 ATL MS Papers 37/68; Gully to Haast 1 Aug 1865 17 Life and Times . . . p 332 18 ATL MS Papers 37/68; Gully to Haast 2 Sep 1865 19 Ibid; Gully to Haast 2 Jan 1866 29 Ibid; 22 Jan 1866 21 Previously Gully had sold his watercolours to Haast for £2.10.0 and then for £s.s.o—even then at a cut rate; see Gully to Haast 8 Oct 1865 22 Life and Times .. . pp 842-3 23 Gully to Haast 4 May 1863 and 2 Oct 1865 requesting Haast’s permission to copy work already done for him 24 This account and the quotations by H. F. Von Haast in Life and Times ... pp 264 ff 25 Life and Times . . . pp 260-1 26 Ibid p 264