TREND OF ART.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 87, 14 April 1931, Page 9

TREND OF ART.

RECENT MACKELVIE PURCHASES. , ARRANGING THEIR DISPLAY. It is difficult for anyone on this side of the world to realise the peculiar position in which art has been placed in Europe by the economic changes which have taken place since the war years. Art is regarded as a luxury, not a necessity, and in bad times it is naturally one of those things "which is sure to suffer. For some few 'years very little really great art has been produced, even by the really prominent men, for the very sufficient reason that it is recognised that there has been very little demand for it and very little money to pay for it. Artists have had to adapt themselves to circumstances, and, being dependent on art, have had to consider their means of living. For these reasons, the changes that have taken place are mainly in the production of smaller and less expensive works which may be sohi at prices that make them available to the general public. Artists must live, and even the best have had to consider art from the commercial side and defer the production of works which entail great expenditure of time and labour, and which they would like to represent them to posterity. So it is" in Europe at the present time. While no very great works are being produced and no huge prices are being asked, much really.fine work is being shown'by all classes of artists, but the work is distinctly smaller in size and much more moderate in price. Pictures valued by their producers at &>OO Or so are extremely rare, even by -men With the highest reputations, aud the only artists who haVe the courage to mention high prices nowadays are two or three fashionable' portrait painters, who can always depend on getting big commissions from the moneyed classes 6f America. With these'things in view, the trustees of the Mackelvie Collection judged it to be a suitable time to form a small classified collection unlike the usual New Zealand art collections, pictures for which are, generally purchased without any regard to the whole. Visitors to Europe during the last few years who have studied art matters will be aware that any permanent gallery of note is divided into schools—usually by the use of different rooms. Such a thing has so far not been attempted here. Unfortunately, the galleries of the Mackelvie collections will not allow of classification of works by the use of separate rooms, but an attempt will be made to classify and keep apart in other ways the works of schools which have been, recently purchased. • The trustees have been able to make purchases in three modern British schools and in modern French art. British painting is usually put in three welldefined sections—that of London, or Central England, that of Scotland, and that of the West of England, usually known as the Cornish school, which, for many years, has had such a healthy influence on British art.

The trustees have been trying for some time to obtain the use of a separate wallerv where the new purchases could" be displayed, but have been unsuccessful, and it is found necessary to make certain changes in the present galleries to admit of the new works being shown. This reorganisation will •be commenced at once, hut it will be a few weeks before it will be possible for the new collection to be displayed.