‘N.Z. A Civilisation In Search Of Style’

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30129, 13 May 1963, Page 17

‘N.Z. A Civilisation In Search Of Style’

(New Zealand Pres* Association)

DUNEDIN, May 12. “A civilisation in search of a style” might serve as a description of a new society like that of New Zealand. Sir • Herbert Read, the emin- ’ ent art historian, critic and poet told University of Otago graduates on Saturday. "In New Zealand you have a country as beautiful and as bounteous as these of . ancient Greece or Italy, and • though you may have a way of life in which justice and other social virtues prevail, you lack a distinctive style." he said. • "Your ideals are said to be comfort and cleanliness—admirable ideals in themselves. but not constituting or even encouraging style. “I think you may have to face the possibility that these ideals are not compatible with culture as the past has known kt. ' 'The great works of art of the past were products of times of predominant anxiety and stress, and the great artist was one who ’ could reconcile humanity to its tragic faite. ‘New Zealand may be limited, therefore, to a cul-

tore of lyric poetry and garden cities, and though even within these limits you could still achieve a style. It would not be what we are accustomed to call ‘the grand manner.'

“New Zealand is a culture of 1.000.000 bungalows and 10.000 tabernacles accept the fact, refine the primitive idea. “Your worst policy would be to imitate the academic ideals of the Europe from which your stock is derived —ideals formulated in a different climate and dominated by the fears and aspirations of tragic races.

“Your destiny is to find new ideals, conditioned by your own climate, your own way of life, your own social economy.” Ideals were never the result of mental effort or deliberate calculation. Sir Herbert Read said. They emerged from the constructive activities of a people, and depended for their vitality on a communal unity, on a spirit of mutual aid. “A nation only gets the great men it deserves. If a nation does not provide the occasions, great deeds do not happen. “I feel that the greatest deeds do not. proceed from a calculation of profit or gain but from self forgetfulness and a kind of folly.” Sir Herbert Read said a new civilisation could be achieved in New Zealand. ‘ But make it new,” he told the graduates.