ROYAL ACADEMY

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20273, 26 June 1931, Page 3

ROYAL ACADEMY

SURVIVAL OF ARtf. DUKE OF GLOUCESTER'S \ SPEECH. i C*aos£ cvs. ow* coßSxaroKssin.) ! LONDON, May 15.. :The principal guest at the Royal . Academy banquet ■ was the Duke of ; Gloucester, who replied to the Eoyal toasts. 1 "Art is long-lived," he said, "and is ' all that' remains of great civilisations.Art survives when all else is gone. In fact, history is based on it, and even the dullest chronological history book with which boys are afflicted at school devotes a few pages to the artistic reactions of the period under review. .1 have been talking of the past. Let us; now think of the present. We will not trouble about the future; some people think its colouring is too dark. There is always a tendency to decry modem art; but we must remember that maturity improves other things besides wine, and that we are all at heart laudatores' temporis actL The youngest of us are inclined to say that things are not what they were in our day, even if we have just left school or a university. I sometimes wonder if people ever said that the Venus de Milo was a monstrous, reproduction of the feminine form, or that York Minster was a hideous pile. "The artist to-day has a greater freedom and therefore a greater responsibility. His eye and hands are the agents not of another's purpose; but of: his own instinct. He reacts to the pageant of life as it passes before him, and produces works in which he hopes his fellowmen will find a constant source' of pleasure and interest. As in its sub-ject-matter, so in its methods, there is nothing settled or final about ever moving with the times and it is leaving its vivid record on the pages of history. Just as the conditions of our lives, however novel they may seem, are always rooted in the past, so the styles and methods of art cannot disdain tradition without the, risk, of ab- t ject failure and a penitent return to the lessons of experience. Training of Artists. "I cannot speak here in the headquarters of art in England without referring to and expressing . some appreciation, which I Know will be voiced by all the guests .here, of the unobtrusive _ but nevertheless effective work which is carried out from year to year. The Royal ! Academy is a body of experts which for over 160 years has concerned itself with the training of artists in its schools ; and with fostering a love of art in the general public through its exhibitions. At the same time, it has always kept in close touch with national and other important schemes for the advancement of art in this country. The present exhibition, selected with unremitting care from a vast number of works sent in from far and near, is a splendid proof J or its broad views and its sympathetic < interest in the great variety. of styles, 1 ■while discharging its first duty of main- ! taining the tradition, thoroughness, and i integrity of British art." <