Studio: international art (22.1901)

Studio- Talk

Canadian scene, whose chief charm lay in the play
of light and colour. In A Canadian Landscape (page
209) the delicate purples and greys over the surface
of the foreground gave an effect of transient shadow
of lightest quality. The same play of light diffused
throughout the darker and richer purples, greens,
and browns of the middle distance maintained the
feeling of the action of light in shadow. The dis-
tant village was illumined by a brilliant sky, over
which masses of clouds, light and active, are passing.
Another picture, entitled A Landscape (page 209),
equally charming in colour and in tone, attracted by
the simplicity and character of its composition.
Amongst others were Evening, Rapids (loaned by
E. B. Osier, Esq.), The Harvest Field, Betimen
the Shadows, and Autumn.

J. G.

MELBOURNE.—The Federation of the
Commonwealth of Australia was
recently accomplished, when many
thousands of colonists from all parts
of the continent gathered in the mother-capital of
Sydney to join in the procession of the Governor-
General. The five-mile route from Government
House to the pavilion erected on the spot where
Captain Cook landed a century ago was notable
for the remarkable development in decorative art.
The effect came as a surprise to those accustomed
only to coloured bunting and festooned greenery,
and its brilliancy was due to a discovery in art
material which, however familiar it may be to
Londoners, was to Australians a revelation.

In three weeks the city had entirely transformed
its architecture, and the streets were dignified by a
series of triumphal arches erected by various
Colonies, capitals and public bodies, as their mark
of participation in the function. The skeletons of
these in timber were covered with lamina and
mouldings in a new composition, which at a short
distance closely resembles marble, and which,
being made in the architects' studios and work-
shops, can be rapidly adjusted by nails and screws.
Over these mouldings, when complete in their final
position, an adhesive white powder is dusted, and
in a quarter of an hour of our brilliant cloud-
less sunshine the whole fabric gleams white and
opalescent against our deep blue sky like the
marble splendour of the Taj-Mahal. By this new
magic clusters of Corinthian columns, glowing
friezes and storied entablatures, "rose like the
exhalation of a dream." It was a revolution in
street architecture, and the old city, which had
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been laid out by the chance routes of the ancient
bullock-drays, was more than decorated—it was
absolutely transformed.

The Federation will be duly marked by the
artists by means of another Exhibition of Australian
Art in England. The South Australian Society of
Arts has propounded a scheme for a " Federated
Australian Art Exhibition" in London and the
provinces, and this is now under discussion in the
Australian capitals. It is proposed that the
Exhibition shall be opened in London on the 14th
of May, and that on the 14th of June it shall start
on a provincial tour to Manchester, Leeds, Bir-
mingham and Glasgow, remaining a fortnight in
each city, and winding up with a fortnight in
Bethnal Green on the 15th of October.

Melbourne is honouring itself now by welcoming
its two most distinguished sculptors, Mr. Bertram
Mackennal and Mr. Charles Summers, the one
from London and the other from Rome. Mr.
Mackennal has brought his Circe with him to
exhibit here, and he has come out to erect his
statue of the late Queen in Ballarat and a private
mausoleum in Kew for Dr. Springthorpe. Mr.
Summers is arranging for soldiers' monuments in
Sydney and elsewhere, and for fac-similes of the
antique in the Exhibition Gardens.

The approaching visit of the Duke of Cornwall
and York has given a great impetus to the growing
desire for street statuary all over Australia.

We are about to lose for a while one of our greatest
painters, Mr. John Longstaff. He is now very busy
in Sydney with many portrait commissions, and he
will shortly take up his residence for a year in
London. It is understood that he is likely to
secure there a valuable commission from the
Trustees of our National Gallery, though for some
years past there have been legal difficulties in the
way. One of our earliest patrons of the Fine Arts,
Dr. Gilbee, left a bequest of ,£1,000 to be spent in
procuring from an " English artist" a painting
treating of the early history of Australia. Whether
the terms of the will can be fulfilled by merely
giving the commission in London and paying the
money there is still a moot point, but another
Melbourne artist, Mr. E. P. Fox, who is also
leaving for London, may perhaps secure the £(>oo
of interest which has accumulated for a second
commission under the same bequest. Where
artists are nowadays so vagrant and cosmopolitan,