LANDSCAPE ART IX NEW ZEALAND 



by him and the foreground had not been quite completed when he died. 

 Van der Velden, on the other hand, came to New Zealand as a matured 

 artist of considerable repute, having obtained the highest honours in 

 Holland, his work being included in the collections at the National 

 Museum, Amsterdam, The Hague, and also in the National Gallery at 

 Sydney. Though generally in rather a low key, the works of Van der 

 Velden to be seen in the local art galleries set a high standard of achieve- 

 ment to the student. His method of working was not especially direct : 

 he seemed to feel his way step by step to the very finishing-touch on 

 the picture. In their unfinished state his works conveyed little or 

 nothing to the casual observer; and not until the brilliant but careful 

 and significant finishing-touches of pure colour brought the main in- 

 terest into relief against the sober and retiring background was it 

 possible to realize the beauty and significance of his work, which, with 

 its feeling of unity, quietness, and restraint in colour and technique, 

 possessed that elusive quality and mystery which would enable the eye 

 without weariness to return to it again and again. 

 Among other earlier artists must be mentioned J. C. Richmond, who, 

 like his friend and companion John Gully, was also a self-taught artist. 

 Richmond was known more particularly for his water-colours, which 

 there is little doubt were a source of inspiration to Gully. Contemporary 

 with these were W. M. Hodgkins, a water-colourist of no small merit, his 

 work closely resembling that of Gully; andN. Chevalier, of whose some- 

 what topographical, yet entirely pleasing water-colours the Dominion, 

 by the generosity of his widow, possesses an extensive collection. 

 Contemporary with Van der Velden was James Nairn, whose influence, 

 though more local than Van der Velden's or Gully's, was greater than 

 any other in Wellington art circles. Representative of the Glasgow 

 School of painting, Nairn's work, after the careful, precise, and some- 

 what topographical examples of his predecessors, caused considerable 

 stir ; and though not understood at first by the public was welcomed 

 by the artists, who, in New Zealand, have always shown an extremely 

 modern tendency. Nairn was essentially a painter of sunlight, and there 

 is a pleasing fresh and open-air feeling in his work. A teacher at the 

 local school of design, he quickly galvanized life into art in Wellington. 

 A genial man, who withheld nothing that he knew, he mixed freely with 

 the students in sketching exhibitions. Working in both water-colours 

 and oils, his largest canvases were finished out of doors and he flung all 

 academic conventions to the winds. Some of his followers tended at 

 first to perpetuate his faults rather than his virtues, and for a time there 

 were produced somewhat crudely coloured, brutal or stodgy oils and 

 sloppy water-colours, in which blobs of not too clean colour ran riot, 

 libels on nature and on Nairn, whose colour was essentially pure. 

 Emerging from this stage and working out their own salvation these 

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