OUGHT THERE TO BE A LAW?

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32430, 17 October 1970, Page 16

OUGHT THERE TO BE A LAW?

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WHIM WHAM)

(Dy WHIM WHAM) The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Marcus Loane, attacked surrealist painting, discordant modem music, and what he called hideous elements in modem literature, as part of the moral crisis in today’s society ... a moral threat because they were a revolt against order and discipline . . . "distortions of the basic realities of human life . . . minds that have become incapable of all response to truth or beauty.”—News. My Lord Artsbishop, you’re a Sunday Painter, — No Disrespect to Sabbath or the Cloth, — Upon our sinful Arts, without Restraint or Patience, you pour the Vials of your Wrath.

In Pictures of our Time, in Music, Books, You find no beauty, you discern no truth: Naming no Names, you speak of Art that looks Distorted, hideous, deformed, uncouth. The ‘Moral Crisis in to-day’s Society’ Is old as Adam, and there’s no Report That in his Garden there was much Variety Of Arts, except the agricultural Sort. ‘Beauty is Truth’, wrote Keats, who in his Day Was damned, if not by Bishops, for bad Art. Truth’s in Command and Artists must obey, and that’s what Beauty is—Truth’s radiant Part.

Truth is that Man is busy murdering Man; That Man deforms Himself, perverts his Powers; All Governments are Liars, and Who can Hit on the Truth, between THEIR Lies, and OURS?

Truth is, there’s always Sand for burying Heads And sunning Bodies on, and Beauty too, Has sung its Way to suicidal Beds, — What then (my Lord?) are the poor Arts to do? They didn’t make the only World they know, its Joy and Anguish, Cruelty and Pity,— Dark Mirrors, shuddering with What they show. Beauty is Truth, —and Truth’s not always pretty.