ART AND INDUSTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 10, 12 January 1934, Page 6

ART AND INDUSTRY.

Mr. Rnriciman has decided to appoint a representative council to improve the relations between art and industry, thus giving effect to_ one ofi the main recommendations of the Gorcll Report (says the "Manchester Guardian"). It is a sensible step—especially as it k not j*oiii£ to co<=t the Government anything. The main trouble about improving the relations of art and industry in England is that most of England-is unaware that they' have (or ought to have) any relations. Despite what Norman William and his Frenchmen did •for us. in the beginning, wo have been only I intermittently, through the centuries, an arthoving peopln. Art (thinks the majority of i j English people) is something you go to look at in a museum on a wet afternoon in a strange town when you have nothing else to do. Art | in industry" (thinks a possible majority of English manufacturers) consists in applying meaningless decoration in gaudy./ colour to I make machine-made products look a little less I machine-made. It is an old and dreary story. But the. recent example of France and Sweden j '■— where the artist is called into industry to . do an artist's work —ha,s not altogether been ,la*t on the manufacturers of this country. If Sweden and France can make textiles, pot- | tery. gla>«. furniture and household poods : \vhich not merely attract instead of revolting an educated taste, but nlflo sell in astonishing (quantities, why cannot we? [i