The Evening Star TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1931. REALISM IN ART.

Evening Star, Issue 20987, 29 December 1931, Page 6

The Evening Star TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1931. REALISM IN ART.

It is not surprising that Australia, having emerged from tho primitive stage after a century of rough pioneering work, should make rapid advances on the cultural side. Already notable things have been done in literature. It is true that no great original writer, either in prose or verse, has arisen, but the sum of accomplishment is a happy augury for the future. The development in art is perhaps even more striking. Here, again, no master has been acclaimed. That applies probably to almost the whole of the world in a time* approximately equal, but the Commonwealth has already produced painters and sculptors whose best work is regarded by tho critics as being up to the standard of any British school. Australia possibly has not a John, an Orpen, or a Brangwyn, but it has a number of artists whoso treatment of atmosphere, colour, and line are informed with imagination and technical skill, and their pictures have found ready appreciation not only in, their homeland, but overseas. Australia* .with its hot jvonderful

colour tones, and vast brooding and mysterious spaces, should have an irresistible appeal for the imaginative paintez - . It is generally admitted that much of the British art of the Victorian period was tamo and formal, and quite devoid of imagination. Muchlauded painters had their little hour of success. Their pictures sold readily for large sums. To-day much of their work lies neglected and forgotten in garrets and cellars and in the store rooms of auction marts. With few exceptions, the artists of that period whoso work is now appreciated were men who won little fame in their day. They did not attempt vast canvases on traditional and conventional classical subjects, but sketched the quiet beauty of the countryside, or, like Millet (the .French painter), the life ami toil of the fields and villages. Inevitably the revolt came, and as generally happens in revolutions it often went too far, descending on occasions to the grotesque. The rising tide of art in Australia was responsive to the new ideas, but its painters as a body kept the happy mean, and, avoiding the eccentricities of the extremists, painted with a freshness and sincerity that soon won recognition. The Australian section in the art gallery at Dunedin’s big Exhibition was an illustration of the stinking abilities of the artists of the Commonwealth, and this was reinforced this year by the collection of paintings shown by Mr Robert Foster. Among the rebels in the artistic world is Mr Norman Lindsay, whose work has occasioned biting comments and furious condemnation. He has his admiz-ers, it is true, but even in these days, when the age of prudezy may be said to have passed, most people are revolted by his art. A copy of a book, ‘ Norman Lindsay’s Pen Drawings,’ has just come to hand, and it confirms the impressions made by his previous work. -His ability is beyond question. Firmness of line, great skill in drawing, and technical expression in a remarkable degree are included in his equipment. But he has allowed the liberty of the present day to degenerate into license. He is obsessed with the evil and licentiousness of the world, and these things obtrude themselves in his work in every aspect. In the pen drawings there are few exceptions. Everyone knows something of the brutality and beastliness of life. Mr Lindsay expresses these phases in the most brutal and repulsive manner. Many of his pictures could not be aclznitted to the ordinary household, and few, if any, of the custodians of our art galleries would have the courage to place some of them on the walls. It is a pity that such a talented artist should so lose himself. Sometimes it is claimed that all things are permissible in art. Mr Lindsay, by means of many of his pictures, unintentionally gives an emphatic zzegative to that contention. If the function of art is to lift the mind to a higher perception of truth and beauty, then much of Mr Lindsay’s work must be accounted a dismal failure.