Many Paintings But Few Works Of Art

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31540, 30 November 1967, Page 16

Many Paintings But Few Works Of Art

In opening the Canterbury Society of Arts’ summer exhibition at the Durham Street Art Gallery, Mr D. C. Peebles quoted a recent statement by an English art historian to the effect that art which does not enlarge our experience is not worth the bother.

This enlarging of the experience may sound rather like drastic surgery, and there are those who look upon the possibility of having something unfamiliar happen to them with the same sort of fear and trembling with which they contemplated a major operation. We are, for the most part, happy to be left in the secure world of familiar images and comfortable assumptions, and resent the needling intrusions of the new and often uncomfortable idea. Any good work of art leaves us changed in some measure. It has shown us a view of the world of which we have not been previously aware. It has quickened our imagination and stimulated our intelligence—we will live a little more fully because of such a work.

To my mind, the exhibition that Mr Peebles was opening has little in it that might add some new insights to our experience of the world. One is confronted with the ail too familiar. The reviewer counted six tumbling streams, nine boatyards, and 24 snowcapped mountainscapes, not to mention a number of works combining some of these themes. The snow was never whiter, the plains greener, nor the sky more blue. These are the work of good keen painters who sit down here on the plains, only on sunny days, and record the surface of what they see. What one itches to see is the painting which tells us something about the darker side of our landscape—beautiful certainly, but which quite frequently kills those who try to climb her peaks, tramp her untracked bush, or try to ford her unpredictable rivers. A man who has hung down a crevasse on the end of a thin rope, having survived the ex-

perience, would dispute the orderly, polite, and decorative view of the mountains set out again and again in this exhibition. His view of the rugged, powerful, treacherous, stonn-swept, but nonetheless beautiful mountains might be nearer the truth. Then again, our outdoorsman might agree with the polite versions because it is often apparent that those who enjoy making mental and physical demands upon themselves in sport or business, prefer their art to be of less demanding standards an easychair for the mind. There were in the exhibition a number of abstract paintings which were as undemanding as the landscapes, but to look on the brighter side there were a number of stimulating works. Sydney Thompson’s “Mahurangi, North Island” sang with the colour, assured brushwork, and the discerning eye for atmospheric light of a latter-day impressionist.

Michael Eaton exhibited an eye-teasing non-objectlve work which moves away from the rectangularity of the normal canvas.

Shona Macfarlane, of the Dunedin Society of Arts, showed an Ernst-like work “Homage to June Black,” which engaged one’s attention fully with its intricate textures and complex movements. There was an exuberant drawing by Rosemary Campbell entitled “Growth.” C. Rand’s “Line in Space” was one of the more successful non-objectve works. The pottery exhibits are of a very high standard. Particularly attractive are six goblets by Irene Spiller, the vases of Nola Barron, and Hazel McCaughern’s mugs and casserole.

It would appear that if a potter mistreats his clay, his pot dies in the kiln by blowing up or cracking. If oil paint had the some discerning qualities there would be a much smaller but better exhibition at the Durham Street Art Gallery.