DO WOMEN SET THE FASHIONS?

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 95, 16 January 1926, Page 15

DO WOMEN SET THE FASHIONS?

VIEWS OF ARTISTS, NOVELISTS, AND ACTORS

So far as painters are concerned the suggestion that women are dictating fashions in the arts does not receive acceptance. Judging from the views of several famous painters, whose views were sought by the “Westminster Gazette," their answer would appear to be summed up in the sentence: “They are not.”

“Heaven help us if it should be so,” exclaimed Sir William Orpen. “I don’t see any signs of their influence, our 1T I did i should shut my eyes to it. “True, they crowd the art shows, but that is merely because it is the right thing to do. They would be better employed in staving at home and minding the babies.” Mr. Augustus John. ■ “Women as patrons may pay the piper,” declared Mr. Augustus John, “but the tune is there already. “As far as appreciation goes, the views of women may be just as valuable as those of men, but that is not to say they take any part in influencing artistic creation. “It is a mistake, on the other hand, to think that women copy art. The Rossetti woman lived before Rossetti, and-by the time he bad recorded her she had given place to a healthier type.” “Any influence on painting from the woman’s point of view is bad without exception,” said Mr. C. R. W. Nevinson. “Art is creative and intellectual, and from their nature Women are bound to hate it and always will."

“They like plagiarism and what is second-rate. Anvthing that is a little harsh or repellent, as art is bound _ to be/is shunned bv women as not being beautiful. “This attitude can be seen in any rooms or houses decorated by a woman. Invariable the decoration has a medieval, ‘olde-Englandv,’ tea-roomy, sentimental effect. “I can’t see any influence of women on French painting and all English art comes from France.

“It is a different story with portrait painting, which is a kind of photography. . Here the woman demands flattery and her own decorative effects. "Actors, dramatists, and novelists may feel the baneful influence of women on their work, but the great triumph and charm of the plastic and painting arts is that they are not influenced at all by the public.” If we are approaching an age when

literature and the arts arc “dictated” by women, our leading authors and actors are not perturbed about it. Mr. G. K. Chesterton’s comment when approached bv the “Westminster Gazette" was characteristic.

“Our modern madness,” be said, “began with saying that men and women were just the same; now we are wildly exaggerating the difference. Really, this business about Woman has been discussed to death.

“It rather reminds one of the early nineteenth century, which began by saying religion was over and done with, and then proceeded to argue about religion more than ever. No Sex in Truth. “Votes for women began by saying, as Shaw did, that there was no real difference, except that of actual sex, between man and woman; now we are talking as if woman was as different from man as the moon 1 “It does not make very much difference whether readers or audiences are male or female. The best thing the artist can do is to tell the truth as lie sees it, without worrying whether he is working mainly for women, or men.” Miss Rose Macaulay, the novelist, thinks it does not really matter, one way or the other. “Taste in the arts is so different between any two human beings, irrespective of sex,” she said, “that whether men or women predominate does not much matter.

“Women may be bigger novel readers than men are; it may be that the lighter side of the theatre and the arts appeals to them more, but that is possibly because thev have more leisure. “Are there not, .also, more women in the world? Mv own work? Well, I just write because I want to write. 1 never consider whether I am writing more for women than for men.”

Mr: Henry Ainlev, whose impersonation of Strickland, the superb egoist in “The Moon and Sixpence,” has been hailed as a fine studv in masculine psychology, declared whimsically :— “Well, whv shouldn’t women count? Look what thev are doing in the world to-day. See how they flock to a play like this, which shows them bow men ought to treat them!

“And what would happen, pray, to the good-class plavs without the support of the women ? “I would as soon plav to an audience mainly of women as one mainlv of men. There is no real difference between the two that matters.”