WOMEN'S FORUM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 260, 2 November 1932, Page 13

WOMEN'S FORUM.

ART OF PAINTING. | TRADITION AND EXPERIMENT. | The subject of tradition and experi-ment-in the history of art was discussed"; yesterday before the members of the Auckland Art Society at a luncheon j talk'in the club rooms by the president. Dr.'Campbell Duncan. \ We were apt to think, said Dr. Duncan, that tradition was a little abstract, but ; - : we couldattach to it personalities -who.had handed down the result of their experiments, which had become a tradition. The facetious modern) kicking against the shackles of conventional opinion, looked tipon tradition as something entirelly belated, as dead and ineffectual as Queen Anne, or, in the. word* of the comedian, ''something too utterly j antiniacassar." But that did hot wipe out' its significance. The moderns had fashions in art, which showed that they were a little conceited, for tradition was a very real thing and there had been no great work of art in painting, music or writing which had not tradition beneath i€f ; . " ■"■ "'■ " / '■ m " Expcriir. Nt also was very valuable, for it',-was only by experiment that,we adventured into the Unknown and by adventuring, on the highways and byways we'created something new in life. Life itself was a speculative experiment. The Vorticists, .who came on the London art w.oridvwith a very heavy crash, were experimenters who carried rhythm to e.\r cesS,. but they might have .done good beyond our comprehension, and perhaps beyond, their own. • "The.'physical, elements' of a picture broadly, came under the headings of rhythm of line,-massing of forms, space, light and, shade and colour. Of these the least valuable was: colour. Of the massing 'of form the greatest exponent was Michaelaiigelo, who was, an interior decorator. Massing of form gave a dynamic quality, to - a picture,. Light and shade' were ..the relations of mass to space.. The works: of Claude, Poussin, arid especially Turner, were exquisite examples of space and. atmosphere. Colour was the least important fact in a-picture. Innumerable works of art which lacked colour, were perfect pictures, but colour has a certain emotional arid sensuous quality which heightened the enjoyment of a-picture. "In.considering tradition'in relation to aft'arid, accepting it as the result.- of successful- experiment, we must' assume tha-t. it. was a shifting thing that dominated the life of any age, but which was a fashibn.if it'did not survive. Shakespeare was the greatest example of the founding of. a great..tradition which would never be altered, .and in art Gainsborough was probably the greatest painter in all Europe of his time. Each age broughtlts tradition, and in the past, the old masters created a tradition. The painters of today were building up fresh tradition and there was no reason to doubt that spine jjjf i the moderns—Cezanne. Van Gogh, G££gqin;r- Picasso. : and-; even. : -Augustus Jol|n—were foimding a tradition of this period;"and would be traditional painters to %bstefity. .. - '.:The;.vote of thanks to Dr. Duncan was ; v i '■'&■> '.' ". - ■ THE 1918 'FLU. V<.Nev|f. since... the fourteenth-century Black Death' .'did) such a:■ plague sweep. the «r»rld as-was done by the great influenza plague?'of November, 1918. The -deaths for- this first" twelve weeks ' alone were estjmafed at-6,'p00,000; of which 90,000 wefje .lit the United'kingdom. In London afofie, i'8;p00 |persons died. At .the-time d£ jhe -Armistice,-influenza was claiming five-times as many victims as the Great :1914-is.\ In* Britain churches were closed* all over the country, part of the Griiris'by-fishing fleet had to return-home'} whole families died within a few days, children-'-fell .dead outside their homes, peqpld.-.'collapsed- in;the street; and an appeal was made for limited use ; of the telephone, because hundreds of, operators were"' ill.; Queues of hearses stood outside ;the cemeteries.. People went mad thr'pugh the disease . arid, cbmniitted sjiifeide.Qrie killed his two-year-bid;ison. .with*a razor, Cincrnas were j/ut- '. but of bounds to' soldiers, manjf wefejclps'ed, and 'continuous perforniariqeS were banried, Sailors'.throats were sprayed with, and the bftvs'.bf one school- were .forbidden, to trayef. inside tramcars. Huts were built $i iuppleriient the, crowded-out hospitals. Fat "bacon, claret, the disinfection of the sire'els,;'.sm"bEing';;'an'd' more" meat-eating wefe : vainly--suggested-- as remedies. The F^efal-'^Wbfkefs' Union''". refused ' : fp attiad any Juneral.-.after inid<day- on Saturdays:; ~<. -', ■ '■