THE COMMENT oF THE PUBLIC.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 580, 28 June 1913, Page 2

THE COMMENT oF THE PUBLIC.

HO'V PICTURES ARE LOOKED AT With types of visitors to the Royal Acalcmy wo are all familiar. There :ire the voluble, the bored, the heavy, the facetious, and so on ; but where are the intelligent visitors ? A friend of mine with a statistical twist compiled an analysis of the current descriptive prose of Burlingtow House thus : "Lovely," 27 per cent. "Fascinating," 19 per cent. "I really don't care for her fac«," 16 per cent. "Delightful," 1.4 per cent. "Too sweet, don't you know," 8.5 per cent. "Darling little picture," 3.7 per cent. "The subject is not one that appeals to me," !t per cent. Miscellaneous, 2.S per cent. Nothing appropriate, nothing origins!. The average person has not the slightest conviction about anythng. His or her rapt glance may dwell for quite several moments on some particular item, but inwardly he or she has not the faintest idea what it all means i; and the criticism applied, with a shrug, as the s7iaker turns lip the next number, is from the vocabulary quoted. VAPID COMMENT. Hound the "problem" picture the crowd is biggest and the language farthest-fetched. In every mind, by the way, is brooding the belief that surely it is time for tea. This absence of anything approaching sensible appreciation has its depressing aspect. Good or bad Academies we may have (it being accepted as a maxim that this year's like this week's "Punch," is "rotten"), but the ordinary person ought to realise that when a picture appeals to him lie should know why, and in coherent English. Not everyone has the artistic tendency, nor are all the critics Ruskins ; but, slightly to adapt the j saying of Socrates, an unexamined picture is not worth seeing. Perhaps the great multitude of the pictures is responsible for all this j vapid and artificial comment. THE CASE OF THE PROBLEM PICTURE. The public likes a picture which tells a narrative or puts a question or, failing that, possesses the one desideratum of novelty in topic or treatment. Mention of the "problem" picture suggests that to these the spectator brings a mind already charged with newspaper criticism. He sees for himself, compares his o: n impressions with the newspaper's, and is able thenceforth to Swcak with feeling at his womenfolk's tea-tables. On the other hand, the less important picture .escape the newspaper man's notice, and, ipso facto, the amateur critic's.—Charles Stokes, in the London "Evening News."