THE OUTLOOK OF ART

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 192, 29 July 1932, Page 10

THE OUTLOOK OF ART

COMMENTS BY MB. BARTON. HOPES FOR A REVIVAL. Some general comments upon art as it appealed to him, and the effect it has upon the minds and outlook of people generally, were given by Mr J. S. Barton to a largely attended meeting of the Napier Society of Arts and Crafts last evening. “I claim no more in art than that which pleases me, and 1 admit my indebtedness to the output of artists and real craftsmen,” stated Mr Barton at the beginning of his brief remarks. “ I am not fitted to enter into any argu ments as to what is art or to enlarge or dogmatise upon it. If one gets amongst a number of votaries of art it is hard to get unanimity, and I am one of the general public who only has the right to say: ‘Yes, 1 like that and I’ll take it.’ Those are the kind of people you must encourage from your point of view.”

Referring to his ideas upon the subject of art Mr Barton said that he would define art as an attempt to express an ideal of the beautiful in a form of material that had its limitations. At the present time he was delighted to see the attempts that were ebing made to enlarge the class of those who made an ideal of that. It was good to read that in music there was now a swing towards the work of the old masters and away from the music of the present, which he considered degenerate. There was that tendency in all ways and he hoped that it would result in a revival in art and craftsmanship in Napier. He applauded the society’s effort to bring this about by the opening of a studio for the teaching of art. One of the tendencies of the past had been to dw-ell upon things super ficial and outside that amused and in terested. “We are being made better men and women by having those ex ’raneous and tinsel things- cut nwnv and having our timi simpler things that come from inside. It is going to be something - for ns. ’' To meet and to talk about art as was being done was a set-off against those ideals which were “tin-pot” end to which too much attention had been given in the past two decades. A child

was happiest when he had to make hi* toys himself and to play with them, but when he had them bought at a shop ready-made he tended to tire of them and put them aside. In the same way the world had been looking too much for constituted and organised pleasure from factory-made toys. The society, he said, had done the right thing in having a craftsman and craftswoman come amongst it* mem* bers, and he hoped that they would receive loyal support. He was ture that members would get more for thenuelve* than they gave, and at the same time they would be doing something for Napier. At the present moment Napier perhaps had reason to be somewhat self-congratulatory, but he urged hi* listeners not to dwell upon that to too great an extent. Here again the cause for satisfaction was largely material, and if the society built up that at which it was aiming it was setting up something that was higher and better, and ideals would become simpler.

Mr Barton was accorded a hearty vote of thanks for his address on th* motion of Mr L. D. Bestall, seconded by Mr L. Theakstone.