Optimism on visual arts

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32462, 24 November 1970, Page 11

Optimism on visual arts

Schools of painting were certainly not at all in accord with the outlook of the young artist who was under a powerful urge to express those things that were genuinely of himself—of his own thmking and feeling, and to present them in a way that he felt was in harmony with his subject. Such an approach augered well for the continued vitality and individuality in the concept of visual art. in this country, the president of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts (Mr R. J. Waghom, of Wellington) said at the opening of the South Canterbury Arts Society’s eighteenth annual exhibition in Timaru recently. Other grounds for optimism could be found in the existence of several note-

worthy visual art competitions; in the increase in the number of dealer galleries; in the setting up of regional Councils for the arts; in the increasing number of exhibitions; and in the attendances exhibitions were attracting, said Mr Waghom. The rapidity with which the latest styles in art became almost universally available could not leave New Zealand artists unaffected, he said. Change had followed change, rules and values that seemed fixed and immutable had been challenged and supplanted. On the one hand, said Mr Waghom, there was genuine doubt about the aesthetic quality and permanence of present trends: on the other, there was in many persons an equally-genuine interest in, and excitement about, these newer styles. A further 1000 years of abstract art had been forecast, but he did not interpret it as prophesying the submergence of representational art, said Mr Waghom. In both fields new approaches, new styles and combinations of styles would evolve, and it seemed inevitable that a cross-fertilisa-tion of these new growths would take place, blurring the differences that now existed, he said.