ART EXHIBITION.

Auckland Star, Issue 111, 13 May 1935, Page 9

ART EXHIBITION.

FURTHER COMMENTS.

NEW PATHS AND OLD

SOME PREFERENCES

There is no hard and fast criterion by which artistic work can be judged, and experts often differ in their opinions. On Saturday were published in the . "Auckland Star'' two brief reviews of the pictures in the exhibition now being held in the Kitchener Hall by the Auckland Society of Arts.

Dr. E. B. Gunson, a former president of the society, mentioned the work of Archibald Nicoll, A. E. Baxter, T. A. McCormack and Miss M. 0. Gilbert, while Mr. Arthur C. Hipwell, art instructor of the Auckland Polytechnic, gave chief attention to Mr. John Weeks. Following are comments by lecturers who have been explaining the pictures to visitors to the exhibition: — General Trends. Mr. J. W. Shaw, of the Auckland Training College:

The present exhibition of the Auckland Society of Arts reveals very plainly, 1 think, the influence of the modern British pictures shown here last year. There is definite evidence oil all sides of the anti-representational trend which has marked artistic development in the older lands for many years now, but which, like most modern movements, lias taken a long time to become an effective force in New Zealand. Our remoteness and our smallness have made us conservative and distrustful of innovation. It is arl to the good that we are trying out the new paths.

Impressionism originally uiined to produce a picture that should not be an exact representation of anything in Nature, but should embody the aesthetic excitement created in a particular artist by what Nature presented to him. The artist was to paint not what he knew was there, but what he saw and felt. In the later developments after the impressionist school, less and less stress was laid on the actual scene that created the emotion, and more and more ou the emotional reaction of the artist. In the most advanced men the picture was finally completely detached from the scene that had inspired it. If the picture suggested anything outside itself it had so far failed. It was to bo judged as a microcosm, a thing complete in itself, creating its own emotions wholly, within itself. This intense individualism has probably already had its day. Certainly there is nothing of this bleak abstraction in any of the pictures in the present exhibition.

But as far as personal references go, I must admit that, much as I admire the bold spirit of experiment that marks so much of modern art. and completely as I sympathise with its aspirations, I think "that in art perhaps above all things the dead still have a voice. It is not in itself a merit that one likes the old paths or prefers the new. A wise tolerance seems to be indicated, an attitude that realises the next generation will regard us as we regard the Victorians. Truth will not bo ultimately helped by violent propaganda one way or the other. I greatly admire Mr. John Weeks and those that sincerely express themselves in his fashion. I even more admire Mr. .T. W. Ash for what is to me the exhibition's finest piece of work in intention and 7 in the means chosen to realise it. I shall not soon forget his masterly handling of the light, and the even more striking treatment of the shadow. If individualism is to be the chief mark of a modern picture then surely he should get the full credit for taking his own line, even though it be an unpopular one, and for making so exquisite a picture according to the standards and methods of yesterday. "Class of its Own."

Dr. R. P. Ansehutz, of the Auckland University College: Considering integrity of intention as well as ability of execution, there is one picture in the Art Society's exhibition which appears to nie to be in a class of ite own. That is Air. James Cook s "Farmhouse in Catalonia." 'J he composition is almost oppressively solid. There is not a stray end anywhere; everything lias been neatly tucked in to form a design which has the inevitability of the multiplication table. And if, as Aristotle holds, a great work of art is to be recognised by the impossibility imagining the slightest difference in any detail, then Mr. Cook has succeeded in making a fine painting. And lie has succeeded in doing this, it is to be noted, without resorting to any trick of illusion. He has handled his paint as if it were paint, without trying to make it look like something else. And the result is a cleanness of surface which is not to be matched anywhere else in the exhibition —at least among the oils. (Miss Lesley Waller shows a comparable respect for her medium, and achieves'a comparable success in the wash drawing "The Flower Markets.") In fact the only other oil painting with the same satisfying texture that I oan remember having seen in Auckland is the little landscape of Air. Stanley Snencer which was shown at the recent English loan exhibition. John Weeks' Work.

The outstanding success of last year's exhibition was undoubtedly the "Interior" of Mr. John Weeks, which is now in the Municipal Gallery—that arresting composition which revolves round a red cushion, rf straw hat and a walking stick. But in spite of the increase in the number of his exhibits this year, and of the increased recognition which he has won from the critics, I do not think that Mr. Weeks lias managed to add to or even to equal last year's achievement. His (lower compositions are very rich indeed in their promise, lint they are not, I feel, achievements on the same level as "Interior." They are far richer than Mr. Weeks' older work in their subtly graduated colour harmonies, but they are poorer in that curious cohesion of volumes that constitutes composition, I may be quite wrong, but it seems to mo that with the sort of technique that Mr. Weeks is developing. he has either to give ud flowers altogether or else to be considerab'v holder in schematism o ' them. Mr. Weeks' art is essentirJ'v of the non-vital geometrical kind Hike that of Ceranne. for instance, ns contracted with that of Ruhensl. and roses don't seem to live in that atmosphere, or at >nast not with the vitality t'>nt Mr. wishes to leave them. Walking sticks find straw hats fit in much hotter.

Mr. Weeks has had a deep and wholly beneficial influence on younger painters, and most of the pictures at the far end of the hall behind the platform are more or le_ss in his style. Mr. W. ,T. Peerr-e'a "flub Fn"»c Bastion Point" mnv |,n no !\ COMinofllt exam"'" and (nlthn"" 1 ! there i= presumably no question of direct influence here), Mr. J. Turkington's "Landscape."