FOR ALL THE PEOPLE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 2, 2 July 1938, Page 30

FOR ALL THE PEOPLE

One can well believe that it took Dr. Hendrik Van Loon thirty years to learn enough to write "The Arts of Mankind," published by Harrap, and another ten years to write it. It is a book which is unique, telline aoout all the arts for all tnt: people. Every home, every school, every library should have a copy, for inspiration and knowledge can be drawn from each and every page. Illustrated in the author's own inimitable style, "The Arts of Mankind" is Dr. Van Loon's most ambitious work. It is probably his best, and certainly the most useful.

In the space 1 nearly 600 pages, and with the lively aid of drawings (many in colour), the author covers painting, architecture, music.sculpture, and all the so-called minor arts from remote times down to the present. They ere discussed concurrently and are made living subjects, related to everyday life, yet no concession is made to overpopular presentation. Hundreds of by-paths are explored, and nearly every page presents a surprise. Dr. Van Loon stresses the point that people and especially children, should have good art (in the very widest sense) placed before them, but not thrust down their throats, so to speak. "In the end, .those able to see and look for themselves will then make the right decision, and because they will do so out of their own volition it will be a lasting one. As for those who have neither eyes nor ears, well, they are just out of luck. But that is not our fault. It is their own misfortune. So let them be happy playing 'The Rosary or the bazooka. But please let them do it in such a way that they shall not interfere with those among their neighbours who have chosen that moment to listen to Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony.'" . No doubt it would be easy enough to cross swords with the author on a few of the statements made or conclusions drawn by him, but he does not claim infallibility. His object, and in this he has admirably succeeded, is to make all the arts an integral portion of every person's life, no matter what his or her station in life may be. Art in its widest sense must be in every home and in every life, not hidden away in galleries and museums. The author's final words on modern movements in painting are well worth quoting in full, but space will permit only a short extract. After referring to "moderns" such as Matisse, Cezanne, Maurice Sterne, Rivera, and others, he says that these men really have something to say which is worth while trying to understand. "All these men had gone through the mill. They had learned their trade and learned Jt thoroughly. They could achieve their new effects only because they were such first-rate craftsmen that they need not bother any further about mere technique, just as a great fiddler or pianist can rise completely above the mere technical details of whatever he or she happens to be playing. I wish I could, say the same about those developments of the last fifteen years which led up to the appearance of abstract and non-objec-tive art (masterpieces composed out of old matchboxes, chicken feathers, and the'offal of the barber's shop floor). 1 make this statement with many misgivings. It never pays to be too cocksure about such things. At present 1 still feel that I have seen more interesting non-objective drawings on the telephone pads of some of my friends and hi the letters sent to me not infrequently by the inmates of our more popular lunatic asylums than in the museums . which carefully preserve these spoils out of our dust-bins. Time will take care of them in its own merciless way. Fifty years from low we shall undoubtedly know whether these .-mysterious products of our bewildered contemporaries were just so much waste of time, or whether 1 was just as foolish as those who objected to Bach because his music was a little too elaborate for their taste." The worst service one can render the arts is to apologise for their existence, says Dr. Van Loon, who has some pertinent remarks to make about critics. "No artist has the right to place himself above the law. But, like the rest of us, he is entitled to judgment by a jury of his peers. That is the rule that since time immemorial has dominated our civil life. It should also be observed within the realm of the arts. The layman is rarely asked to favour us with his opinions upon the work of an expert surgeon or engineer. Why should we not extend the same courtesy towards the artist, who expresses himself in quite as individual a way as the man who removes our appendix or who builds our bridges and railways?"