BRITISH ART

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 3, 3 July 1926, Page 9

BRITISH ART

PRIME MINISTER'S DISCOURSE

PLACE OF THE CBITICS.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

LONDON, 4th March.

The Prime Minister discoursed on the subject of art at the annual dinner of the Boyal Society of British Sculp-

We were living, It said, in a rather difficult time, for we were long past the day of the noble patron, and the medici were no more. It had always seemed to him that the natural successors of the Medici were tho great corporations and manucipal authorities. It should be their duty, now that they were covering the towns with their buildings and the countryside with their town planning, to see that all their schemes and designs should be beautified by whatever' art, in its proper place, had to offer, and that that art should be our own native British art.

He hoped, "in spite of some evidence to the contrary, that we might pass from that curious snobbish subjection to -foreign names and foreign tastes which had been no rife in this country for so long -whenever any form of art ; was concerned. Literature had never suffered in the same degree, but until recent times no singer was considered worth hearing unless he had an Italian name, and no musician unless he had a German name, while even to-day no dance music was considered worth hearing unless it was mulatto. (Laughter;) Those things would pass, and be thought thai the day would come when we would have finally shaken off all those swaddling . clothes in which the last generation was wrapped. What the cause was he did not know. He had often thought, although he never could understand the reason, that certainly, lastii almost to the days of his own boyhood, there was a curious, feeling amongst English, people that there was something not quite respectable about being artists. (Laughter.) He thought that we were passing out of that time. There might have : been: a kind of feeling with Victorian English that nudity, which was so ■ essential in art, was the peculiarity of the foreigner. It might be a reaction from that which was making people affect it so much at present. (Laughter.) There was nothing more natural than that people should spring from one extreme to another. He thought that we should right outselves before very long, and then it might be that the final emergence from swaddling clothes would take place, and we should not be ashamed of art, we should not be ashamed of English artists, we should realise that' we could do as good work in this country as was done in any country in the world, and we'should be: proud of the work of the brains and hands of our own people. ' CRITICISM IS EPHEMERAL. He begged those fortunate people who were artists to remember; one or two things an outsider might ,be allowed to tell them. Let them take pride in .their work and Believe'in the judgement of their own peers, because in any form of art the only thing that mattered was the judgment of their own peers. : Let them not be unduly affected by any criticisi*. that might be written in the Presß or in magazines. They must always remember that there was nothing which was so ruled by the prevailing fashion of a moment as criticism, and there was nothing which changed more quickly and which changed its fashibn. Art was eternal, and criticism was essentially ephemeral. ■ They must not be misled or downhearted if their work was not called brilliant, It was a word that had" done, so much harm that he wanted it to be abolished, togetlier with inverted commas, from the language. So many men anxious to impress themselves on the public would stand on their heads if only a critic would call them brilliant. (Laughter.) A very distinguished critic said once that "Walter Scott was not brilliant. Since he (Mr. Baldwin) read that he had thahkeC. God that he was not brilliant either. (Laughter.) Sir Walter. Scott would, bo remembered in every country of : the world with pride and thankfulness when the last critic had mouldered in the dust. Their art was one of the most glorious that could be because it was, more directly perhaps than 'any art, creative, and it was eternal. That was Mather I a terrifying thought. There was no other art of which it could be. said that I specimens of it might be forgotten and dug up two or three thousand years after they had teen lost and reappear to' the delight and the edification of humaiity.l He thought that every sculptor must bear in mind that he, more than anyone, was working for eternity. 'That in itself should lend a nobility of aim to all his work. He assured them that he would do everything ha could in the direction of trying to instruct his fellow-countrymen in such a way that they might be of material help to sculptors and sculpture. 85, Fleet street.