"ART IS LONG——"
The Daily Graphic of February 1, commenting on the time-contest between two pianists, suggests that exponents of the other fine arts should follow their example. The idea has been taken up at the Royal Aquarium with great success, as will be seen from the following press-cuttings:—
From the "Magazine of Art."
The Directors of the Aquarium are to be congratulated on their new departure, which takes the form of a highly exciting and sportsmanlike contest between those two well-known entertainers Professor Herr Komer and Señor Hardli Duddi in their great poster-painting exhibition. This consists of a trial of strength and endurance, the challenger, Señor Duddi, having given out that he will beat Professor Komer's previous record in time and area combined by one hour and a hundred square yards. As the public are well aware, the latter performer's sensational achievement, "Miss Letty Lind," stands at present unbeaten as an artistic poster, having far eclipsed his "All Beautiful in Naked Purity," which attracted such attention on the Royal Academy hoardings last year. As to time, his Lind tour de force (shown at the Society of Portrait Painters at the New Gallery last autumn) was painted in one continuous whirl or sitting of fifty hours duration, and would have taken even longer, had not the accomplished danseuse fainted from exhaustion. (It is understood, by the way, that Miss Lind has issued a challenge that she will pirouette against the world, including Lord Yarmouth and Little Tich.)
Señor Duddi has hitherto made his mark with presentments of ultra-chic young ladies, which have certainly taken up a great deal of space, and fulfilled their purpose as "eye-openers." We have no details as to the time in which they were designed, but we should think about twenty minutes on an average.
As the Aquarium contest will not be concluded until after we go to press, we cannot give the result, but at the time of writing, after three days' painting without cessation, Mr. Komer had covered a quarter of an acre of canvas, while Mr. Duddi had traversed three hundred yards of advertisement hoarding. Both were going well and strong, the only people showing signs of exhaustion being the umpires and spectators.
From the "Sporting Times."
What will our dear friends of the Anti-Sporting League say to this? Here's yet another form of iniquity, the Poet Stakes at the Aquarium! We looked in last night at that classic abode, and found them all hard at it in the Bijou Theatre. We soon made a pretty book, and only regret we hadn't entered Ballyhooly and Doss Chiderdoss. A black-haired colt was making the pace with what he called "beautiful prose music," quite as good as any we turn out in our first page. But the backers rather fancied a Chestnut Pegasus, who was going well within his stride with his "Odes and Poems." There were one or two other dark horses in the field, that we put down for a place. That worthy and veteran sportsman, and cutest of tipsters, G. Allen, wielded the flag, and got his little lot off, as we were told, with only ten false starts. We left at the fifty-seventh hour, when the leaders had completed two hundred and twenty laps of very blank verse and other paces, it being a go-as-you-please contest. A sonnet divided the first and second, and there was an epigram and a half between the second and the third. As it promised to be a long-winded affair, and rather too noisy for our refined and delicate constitutions, we retired early. We give the odds, however, on another page.
