SKETCH CLUB WORK.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 250, 21 October 1926, Page 22

SKETCH CLUB WORK.

AT KITCHENER STREET GALLERY. ART AND ITS AIMS. A ten days' exhibition of the work of the sketch club of the Auckland Society of Arts was opened in the presence, of a number of wellwishers. The members have been very busy during the past year, and the result of their work is to bo found round the walls of the Kitchener Street gallery, the pictures making a very good show. Mr. W. Rowe, president of the club, in the course of some opening remarks, deprecated the criticism that had been aimed at the parent society, and said the general public had very vague ideas of what constituted art. The real function of art was to discover the inner and spiritual meaning of things. Art harnessed the restless and exploring imagination, and provided it with an adequate means of expression. The artist made his ideal his life, or he ceased to become an artist, and became a tradesman. It was towards the true ideal that the society and club should strive if they were to justify their existence.

Professor Fitt spoke on the aims of art, and described it as one of the spontaneous methods of expressing the joy of living. If*it were not spontaneous, then it was not art, and had failed. As far as he was aware, neither in the present nor in the past had any art of a permanent kind arisen under conditions •of tragedy. The person that rejoiced in life was an artist in some field or another. Speaking of the difference between a sketch and a painting, Professor Fitt said the former had a greater chance of conveying the spontaneity of- the impression, while in a painting or work done over a period of time there was not the same spontaneity. Life in cities and under modern conditions tended to rob the individual of his spontaneity, as people were living in an artificial state. Civilisation was robbing the community of an essential part of life, and the problem of to-day was how to allow each individual to live at least as fully as under natural conditions. The sketch club was doing a good work in trying to help people to express the joy of life. There are some very striking sketches hung round the walls, among those whose work is most noticeable being Alice F. Whyte, Ella Spicer, Ivy Perry and Adele Younghusband. As might be expected from a sketch club, a large percentage of the subjects concern local scenes, which is an excellent way to catch the interest of the general public It is quite useless talking art to the man in the street and expecting him to patronise an exhibition unless there be some personal appeal. One of the surest means of interesting this important person, who, after all, provides the shillings, without which art must languish, is to show him a picture of a place he knows, or subject with which he is familiar. The work of the sketch club is very commendably following these hues. The work is very uneven, but in many-directions there is a distinct advance on the work shown last year at the first exhibition of the club. The exhibition will remain open until the 30th, the hours being from noon to five, and from seven to nine-thirty p.m.