ART- IN NEW ZEALAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 3, 5 January 1931, Page 5

ART- IN NEW ZEALAND.

NO FIELD FOR ARTISTS?

DRAWING- MITCH NEGLECTED

LECTURE TO W.E.A.' SCHOOL.

Included in the series of lectures delivered at the W.E.A. summer school at Wesley College, Paerata, a talk on "Art in New Zealand" was given by Mr. A. J. C. Fisher, A.R.CA., on Thursday evening. Mr. Fisher first made some remarks about art in all its forms. Ho pointed out that art was a tiling having no essential practical or utilitarian value, and nothing to dp with religion, ethics and other incidental things of life. It was purely and simply a thing of sound, shape, colour and form, which in themselves -had no utilitarian or practical value. We could say that 99 per cent of our actions and thoughts had. to do with survival and were distinctly .utilitarian. With rogard to the idea of art having nothing to do with established religion, he gave some idea of the difficulties, which religion immediately conjured up. 'Religion dealt with things that must be, and things that must not be. Art had nothing to do with that. 'in a lecture given by the poet, Walter de la Mare, said Mr. Fisher, lie did not talk about the very sorrowful or glad incidents which were the subject of poetry, but only of the grace and elegance of the sounds, and the design to which it was woven. He talked of how he would prefer to select one word instead of another for its, sound value only. He was concerned with the aesthetic value of sounds. A sculptor was concerned purely and simply with "beauty of forms. We might be tremendously attracted to a man by' his form, but his character might nbt be attractive. Many things were appreciated solely for their grace and form, but had no utilitarian use. What had become of the old craftsman who was prepared to spend perhaps half a lifetime, on a single piece ot work, simply because it intrigued him? Perhaps he would teach his son,,and it might take three or four generations to completethe article. An artist was not a materialist or altruist, and he did not think about whether people would value his work or. like it. Impressionism. It was astounding how dogmatic people would say that a thing did not actually look as it was portrayed. There was such a thing, as impressionism in these days. Impressionism was not cubism. ' The first impressionist was s Constable. If a man looked at a tree, and focused his attention on a leaf, and painted it, and then on another leaf, and so on, when he had painted' all of the leaves he called it a tree. Compare that \vith the impressionist's point of view. Passing along a road, constant • impressions were being received by the brain, one every tenth of a second, whether one was thinking of what one" was seeing or not. The eyes were getting general impressions, seeing things as a whole. Hiiman beings never did that. Focus on the right, side of a pea, and the left side was merely an impression. It was a most important point' to • consider'. how" one saw things. One might paint or draw, or do sculpture, but in each case must consider the question of sight.

) Painting. The lecturer tlien spoke of the conclusions he had arrived at about painting. He would say it was composed of drawing, colour and design. Drawing was a word which covered a tremendous field. In uninspired moments (when not painting) it was a good, thing to consider just what drawing was. A child might say that the drawing of a circle was a balL "What did we see? How many flat things did we see in our daily life? Very few. The main things in. which we were interested were solid bodies. Normally we used stereoscopic sight, and owing to the formation of our eye were able in a way to see a little round the corner.. In looking at a cup we got the added little bit round the corner which gave the dimensional view! Those things made us realise what a tremendous thing third dimensional form was. Were we not going to try and capttire it? Take a simple ball on a table with the room quite dark. Let in light and gradually see this solid body. It was a question entirely of gradations of light and shade —no such things as lines. We could create, that illusion of a solid body with lights and shades. There was no question of touch. The eye conveyed to the brain what the gradations meant. 1 We could say, therefore, that gradations of lights and darks could create the illusion of a solid body on a flat surface. Colour was a tremendous weapon! While one could get people to agree as to the comparative density of colours, and comparative depth of tone, one cottld not say that the same colours affected thpm emotionally in the same way. In design it • was. shape that must be considered,' not incident.. Take the head of Caesar. We said, "What a head!" It was a shape, just'shape value alone; juxtaposition. ' Mr. Fisher then contrasted the method in which a Moslem, a Jew and a Roman Catholic would paint of the Crucifixion, using the same details in the picture. Each could only tell his view by selection of forms and juxta-' T'osition of colour. El Greco was a tremendous religionist, but a bad draughtsman. Great reverence appeared in his work;'' Michael Angelo was not a. great religionist. Wonderful grace of form was shown in his pictures, but the sense of reverence did not show. , ,

Prospects in New Zealand. Passing to art in New Zealand, Mr. Fisher said tliat .there were very many people in New Zealand to-day sincerely interested in art. In the average' English town of the size of Auckland there was not the urge that there was here. There was certainly the" interest here, but lie doubted whether there would ever be the iield for the practising artist. The first thing necessary was to see if one could do a-pencil drawing. There' had been too much landscape work. The same thing applied to Australia. There were one or two portrait painters there, but he did not think there was any better draughtsmanship. We must look to the young people. With hard practice and application to drawing, the material was here, and as good as in any other part the lecturer had been in. • Unfortunately, the art student here received no great encouragement or help. There were no art scholarships in Auckland. Most students had to scrape along without any/ help. Art exhibitions there were, but very little sympathetic help given <¥o the youngster. Mr. Fisher said that if his audience desired to help he recommended that' they occasionally buy soma little thing, done by some young person, that they liked. In tha£ way they "might possibly be , helping some artist of the future.