TRENDS IN ART TO-DAY

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 47, 19 November 1936, Page 10

TRENDS IN ART TO-DAY

Comments by Mr. S. J. Lamorna Birch VISIT TO NEW ZEALAND Dominion Special Service. Auckland, November 18. “It is in the light of a holiday, work and an adventure combined,” said Mr. S. J. Lamorna Birch, R.A., on his arrival by the Rangitata from London, in speaking of the reasons for his visit to New Zealand. < Mr. Birch, who is accompanied by his wife, said he had been wanting to come to the Dominion for years, and he had finally been persuaded to make the trip by a fellow-artist, the Hon. Mrs. R. Vane, a New Zealander, who also arrived by the vessel. “The trend seems to be toward a return to more solid and serious work,” said Mr. Birch in commenting on reqent developments in English painting, “Now that the effects of the war, when there was a period that might be called chaotic, are wearing off, painters are inclining to saner work. I think there is no doubt that people are thinking more of colour.” “Modernism,” he thought, was a phase. It had done a lot of good for art by taking people away from the conventional outlook and giving rein to the revelation of more personality, and it would continue to have a marked influence on art. The word “modernism” applied to art was a misnomer, as if they looked back to the Egyptians it was found that their art was more "modern” than our own. Students today. he said, were giving more care to their draftsmanship, and at the same time there was a broader outlook and a tendency to eliminate unnecessary detail. There was a trend to greater abstractness.