MAORIS AND ART

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12851, 9 July 1907, Page 8

MAORIS AND ART

TO THB EDITOR OF "THE TRESS." •sir, —Mr Gibb has not shaken my conviction that tlio uncivilised Maori is a good eiibject for painting: had I said" "civiliecd,'-' my ground would net have been so secure, though :wr Golclie has shown that even from him artistic inspirations may be drawn. Toe modem and civilised .Maori, however, need lie no more a deterrent than the modern and civilised Greek. True, he is in our midst, and it is hard to fashion the ideal in the midst of the degenerate which stands for tho real; but it is th© office «f the imagination, guided by the le+ends, to remove the .\Uiori and reanimate him in the wonders of his past, and, as Mr Gibb would know, had he studied Maori legend ever so little, that past teems with subjects fit to tax tho skill of any artist. Even conceding that tho .Maori mat is un--irciceful. it, like*/ tho crinoiino or other adventitious garb, is easily removed; and in the majority of myths and legends it-> presence is not required. The real difficulty is that whereas our Greek ideals havo already been created and th© typo set, that ot th© Maori is yet to make; but if Leightoa could iniuse new spirit into an art that was old when ho came, for his Andromeda easily surpasses previous conceptions, surely it is possiblo to make something of subjects hitn-erto practically untouched, and, lie it noted, untouched becauso unknown. But again the colour obtrudes. The Greek was not so white as ho is painted, nor was the, Maori so black as he is pictured. As has been saiu, th© high-born were of an olive complexion, and it is the higU-born wno liguro in the myths and legends. Even' amongst these, too, there must havo' been many with complexions scarcely dingier than tho Greek, for the legends speak of fairies with fair skin ancl yellow hair, with a fishing-party cf wiiom one Kahukura was able to mix on a moonlit night, learning from them tne art of making nets—at once a subject for a picture. I admit it will call for imagination to create a new type of beauty, but artist should spell imagination ; nnd knowing something ot what has been mad© of old-world subjects, I am certain of this: that Maori myth and legend can and will '•enter th© realm of high art."— lours, etc., JOHANNES C. ANDERSEN. July Gth, 15J07.