STANDARDS OF ART.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 161, 9 July 1926, Page 13

STANDARDS OF ART.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Your correspondent "Idealist" wishes to support "to some extent" the views of "J.E.H." and "Purity" on the subject of art and morals, in opposition to those expressed by mc. He then launches himself into a long discourse on the subject of sex hygiene. Every word he says on this subject is substantially in accordance with the opinions set forth in my previous two letters. Why, then, does he support my two righteous opponents? Cannot he see that they wish to smother up sex in every possible way, while he, like myself, would have the subject treated in a more open fashion than at present? Surely he must realise that the way to let in some much needed light on the matter is not to prohibit frank (though not suggestive) pictures in our art galleries, but to encourage them in an honest manner, without self-consciousness. It is the same sort of hunibug that censures nude portraits and compels our children through ignorance to pick up their sex education in the city gutters. The result of gagging sex is not to cast it out (even if that were natural and desirable), but to drive it in, and to risk perversion. I am, etc., R. FAIRBURN.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —May I trespass again in your valued columns to reply to the insulting remarks of your correspondent, R. E. Harding, concerning my views on ''art standards' , ? lam pained and surprised that Mr. Harding could so far forget himself as to label my work amongst the young people as "propagating their futile creeds amongst the impressionable young." Surely he has over-stepped the bounds of tolerance! For the past thirty-five years I have earnestly and devotedly laboured for the welfare of the younger generation, both at Home and in this country, and I have never before been confronted with such a bitterly anti-Christian spirit as appears behind your correspondent's letter. With regard to his literary views, although they are quite beside the point, as art and literature are entirely different things, I may state that no one has a keener appreciation than I of the literary merits of the Bible and of the works of the immortal "Bard of Avon" (Shakespeare), to whom we owe many of our finest proverbs. With Fielding, Sterne, Shaw and Hardy, I am not very familiar; in fact, I can remember reading one volume only by one of the above. It was by the last named gentleman, and, if I remember rightly, related the immoral escapades of a young lady with a French name. I cannot say it was very elevating. However, it seems to mc that Mr. Harding's views are but an outward symbol of a distressing wave of degeneration in our national outlook which rose soon after the untimely death of our good Queen Victoria. A degeneracy, I say, which mocks at Christianity and its followers, derides the work of our most gifted Victorians, statesmen, poets and artiste, and which has found its culmination in Socialism, Communism and Bolshevism. It is the duty of us all, of all rightthinking, God-fearing people, to get together and try and make a determined defence against this menace to our national welfare, and this is to be done only by starting at the beginning; that is, as I hare suggested previously, to cleanse our picture galleries and similar places where the young mind can absorb evil tendencies, of all works of a suggestive nature and allow only pure influences to mould the character. This, together with the introduction into our schools and universities of Bible study, should go a long way to restore the national well-being which we enjoyed thirty or forty years ago.—l am, etc*., L . fiHAS. E. JfARDLE.