ART IN AUSTRALIA.
Sculpture appears as if it would not be neglected by the Australians in the expenditure of their nuggets upon public works. Some time ago we heard of a statue of the Queen to be erected by the colonists of Victoria, at a commission-price of 2000/. ; and now the Sydney men are minded, to disburse a similar sum for a statue of Mr. W. C. Wentworth. The first commission went to seek for a sculptor, we believe, in England; the second is not unlikely to be bestowed upon one who is for the time an Australian. Thomas Woolner, a sculptor whose repute is limited, as yet, to the thinking and observant few, left England for the Antipodes about two years ago, after producing some works giving earnest of artistic re- finement and of powers of mind too uncommon in living sculpture,— works among which his design for a monument to Wordsworth will be particularly remembered. Australian newspapers show that he is a com- petitor for the Wentworth statue, backed by colonial taste. Something also of colonial amour-propre may mingle with the msthetic appreciation ; and here it takes a reasonable form ; for, as the colony does at present hold a man thoroughly capable of producing an excellent work of art in commemoration of a colonial celebrity, the sequence of ideas which con- nects him with the commission is an obvious one, especially considering that in this ease the statue would be its author's first largo public work, and that Australia would consequently be able to claim him as in a pecu- liar sense her own when the day comes in which she will be proud to make the claim. The newspapers state that Mr. Woolner has already produced a medallion head of Mr. Wentworth, which is to be cast in bronze over here, and which is discussed in a tone of criticism such as might well stand a comparison with the home style. The medallion is said to have, in its "character of firmness and decision, something won- derful," to be "quivering with life," and a most striking likeness; and the critic compares the quality of its excellence, as a representation of life calculated to impress even those who do not know the original, with the admirable truth of Vandyck's Gevartius. We think it will be very much to the credit of the taste of Australia, if, bold enough to choose the good art she sees before the loud reputation she hears of, she should be the first great public to "discover" Mr, Woolner.
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