WHERE ART IS FOUND

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21449, 15 April 1935, Page 10

WHERE ART IS FOUND

"Not In Exhibitions

Only"

ACHIEVEMENT OF WORK

WELL DONE

That art meant something more than a collection of paintings, viewed at annual exhibitions, was the contention maintained by Mr F. A. Shurrock. of the Canterbury College School of Art, in an address on "Art and Artificiality" to the Social Discussion Group last evening.

"The primitive man used art for some purpose we do not know," said Mr Shurrock. "It may have been, for magic or superstitious reasons, but at any rate the cave drawings had a different purpose from that of the works in a modern art exhibition, which we view in well-appointed and well-lighted buildings. "In later times Egyptian art had a religious and dynastic reason: it kept the power of the Pharaohs before the people. Reasons for Art "After the developments of art by ihe Greeks and the use of art .v'ain for religious purposes in the middle ages, we come to the renaissance and the growth of humanism. Art now began to be produced without religious and other such reasons. But it was generally produced for some special purpose, and the artist would be a special person engaged for a special job. "In the eighteenth century artists began to do work for exhibition only, and we see the growth of the salon. The temptation was for every artist to try to paint a bigger and more exciting picture in order to attract attention, and probably we have not advanced much further today." Painting was by no means the only form of art, said Mr Shurrock, although the use of the word art as synonymous with painting suggested that it was almost considered so. Actually art was found everywhere, in the weapons of the primitive man as well as in his drawings; and it probably existed in his songs, dances and music. A bootmaker, a housewife, a sculptor, a poet or a musician could become an artist through work well done. Painting Not Always Art "A chair well-made would be a work of art and a painting badly done would not," Mr Shurrock said. "The over-lauding of painting is a very dangerous thing for painting. If there were a wider understanding of art, people would not have to look to special places to find it. We can find it wherever we are, for work well done is raised to the condition of art. Such work is done to fulfil more than material usefulness; whoever does it feels the joys of an artist and will be more able to appreciate the work of art created by others. When a man's work is raised to this condition he will be able to distinguish between the true and the false, between art and artificiality.

"It is not patrons of art or of science that are needed. Art needs artists and science needs scientists."