COMMERCIAL ART

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 140, 10 December 1931, Page 26

COMMERCIAL ART

MUCH. OF IT BUNK"

Sir Ernest Benn," delivering the address at a refresher course for teachers in art schools, at the- Victoria and Albert Museum recently, criticised certain types of modern commercial art, reports the "'Daily Telegraph."

"I am a little concerned about modern commercial art of to-day," said Sir Ernest. "A great deal of it is sheer bunk. If you ever tried to write down the recipe of an ordinary specimen of modern commercial art it would read something like this:

..■■'?'! Take a piece of paper, put on it a big, ugly circle, not in the middle, but in the place where the margin shbuld be. Next take a brush, close your eyes, and dab ugly lines on the paper., Now get a spraying machine, turn round three times, and spray on the paper. That is the background. To'u.next set to work on the lettering. Fdr this obtain a lot of packing Cases and drain pipes, and stick them together to form the alphabet.' '' If you do that sort of thing long enough, and it is ugly enough, you can qualify for the highest salary in one of the; best advertising firms in the country. ."May I warn you against this modern tendency to believe that you can be an artist without knowing how; to draw," concluded Sir Ernest. '^Some things can be taught, and others cannot.. Art is one of tho things which' cannot be taught, and it seems to me that those people who put forward great national schemes for teaching art must look upon it as something like knitting, which calls for the use of the hands, but not of the brains." Mr. Joseph 'Thorpe " who presided, deplored -th'eMaek ■df any idea of design among British business men. The result was that scores of thousands of articles "of common., use which were being.sold in' the shops of this country were made in foreign countries where greater attention was paid to art and design. ',