CHAPTER VIII. THE PORTRAIT OF ROTA.
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CHAPTER VIII.
THE PORTRAIT OF ROTA.
About 1870, when the Native Land Court was sitting at Maketu, a brokendown Englishman appeared on the scene, putting up at Duncan Robertson's hotel. A week passed, and when the landlord demanded payment, it was discovered that the visitor was penniless, though professing to be a member of the Royal Academy. To help him out of this difficulty, the late Mr. Butt and I induced a fine old chief named Rota to sit for his portrait. The price arranged was £10. The artist was minus paints, brushes, palette or easel, but a travelling carpenter, who had been doing some gate painting, lent his pots and brushes, and a temporary studio was fixed up at the end of the hotel verandah. The venerable chief, a fine figure, with his tattoo and his flowing white beard, thereupon sat for his picture for several days. Sitting motionless on a high perch, he suffered a kind of martyrdom in the presence of a large number of his tribe, whose patience was severely strained by the frequent visits made by the artist to the bar--to mix his paints, he explained.
In the meantime the question of finance began to trouble the old man, who confided to me that as he only received a stipend of £20 annually, he would be on short commons for the remainder of the year, and he wanted to know if he could not repudiate his engagement, especially as he had signed no document, but he was told it was too late to go back on his promise.
At last the painting was completed, the £10 demanded, and the canvas proudly held aloft by its creator. But Rota was absolutely non-committal in his replies, stating that he could not judge of its merits as he hadn't his spectacles. "Better get them," said the landlord, who, under the circumstances, could not be considered an impartial witness. "I have left them at Otamarakau," pleaded Rota. This was one of his homes, a day's journey away. "Here, take mine," said the landlord, thus dispelling the old man's last hope of relief.
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"What do you think of it?" asked the artist eagerly, giving the painting into his hands.
Rota studied it deeply from every point of view, the back, end on and upside down. The scrutiny occupied a quarter of an hour. At last he said: "Iu te werry kerewa tangata" ("You are a very clever person"). "This picture represents three distinct subjects. Looking straight at it, it appears to be a beautiful waterfall, with some rimu trees behind."
"Well," the artist whispered to me and the landlord, "I wanted to depict the old warrior as standing in his primeval forest."
"Then," continued Rota, "if you view it obliquely from one end, it is wonderfully like a funeral procession; the trees in the waterfall represent the waving plumes of the hearse. But if you turn it upside down, you can plainly see two lions fighting, and I think they must have alarmed Rota, who has evidently fled. I tink too much te raiona, too nuki nuki Rota (too much lion, too little Rota). I won't pay for it."
A deadlock having arisen, it was arranged that Rota should sit for a second painting, the first one to be destroyed. But even then, Rota, as he grudgingly produced the £10, declared his firm belief that the waterfall, the funeral procession, and the fighting lions still haunted the Englishman's marvellous portrait.
