OUR CULTURED TASTES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 18 July 1925, Page 3

OUR CULTURED TASTES

(By G. Edith Burton, itt Auckland Star.) A good many years ago I was privileged to have under my roof a man whose gifts were so brilliant and varied that it was almost like housing a magnificent library having him at hand to ask this and the other of. And yet. it was not really so good for it was only at rather rare intervals that- one could tap his hidden store of wisdom. He was tt. Scotsman, and as sparing with hi. words as his countrymen are supposed to be with their bawbees. Only that he was diffident and modest beyond all reason—not mean. An M.A. with honours, that was the least of his gifts. (How often does one meet men and women highly educated, yet with a poverty of mind which is appalling.) I asked him one day when he had admired what 1 considered a rather crude picture, by what standard did he think the ordinary lay person should measure his artistic tastes. It- was one of his “dour” days when he answered mostly in monosyllables, but he did tell me this. “Now this is only my idea,” lie said, “but it seems to me that the right way for a lay person to buy a picture is to go into a shop of the kind, allow the shopman to point out the beauties of old masters (copies of course) new artists, and others. Then if he finds beauty and eye pleasure in a good picture, let him buy it. But if while knowing that he should like a standard work, liis eyes and his heart stray to a pretty little scene, summer on a stretch of river, a homely cottage wreathed with roses on the bank, or an imperfectsplash of colour in a still life picture, a bit of rich tapestry, a book, a bowl of autumn leaves, full of technical faults, but full of beauty to the untrained eye; well then, let him brave the shopman’s scorn, and go homo the happy possessor of what he really likes, and not what lie knows lie should like.” And who shall say that this is not very true. All ! But the critical say, “This is where culture-cultivated tastes come in.” Yes; I suppose that is true, too, for we begin so early, many of us, with our cultured training. Mamma and Algernon enter a toyshop to buy the latter a large bail. Mamma’s quick artistic eye has seen a beautiful tangerine one, all one colour, which will make such a beautiful contrast with Algernon’s brown velvet tunic. “See, darling, this lovely one, wouldn’t you like this beauty?" But Algernon's sturdier tastes have chosen a .hard-.looking green with red and yellow stripes. But as he is a good and as the old nurses say, “an easily said Child,V ho gets his first lesson in artistic culture. As his father bends over bis cot to kiss him good-night, the little fellow murmurs sleepily, “Why can’t green and red and yellow be pretty. Dad?”

M hen 1 saw a man this summer in a green blazer with maroon and yellow stripes I wondered if he had been prevailed Upon to buy a plain tangerine hall in his childhood.

T read a capital article the other dav entitled “Discarding as a Fine Art.” The writer was evidently a most sincere believer in art culture. In speaking of the pictures one might discard, she is desperately anxious that they shall not he passed on to ruin some semi-cultured person’s tastes

Slip, shvs: “You don't want to sci'ap t!»o proof etchings which adorned your irv.imlfatlier’s library, yet you know that fashion will never revive; and it is no use keeping them for a rise, and in the meantime what delight they might give to the dressmakers’ aged parents! Perhaps it is better to compromise. Y-m can t do much harm to that generation, no matter what you give it : and even a younger one won’t lose much by receiving the photos of Ristine Madonnas and psniidn-otchings from English nftTntings of your unregenerate days. “Your unregenerate days," are there not thousands of us who 'hanker after the hall with the red and yellow stripes, though I ho tangerine nr *>'ts ccmpJacmthr < a the mantelshelf ” How many people are r.ncerr- i;i their foiu.l praises Of some latest wotk of art in the lor a I palin’ v. thrv skin <l alar to get the. light. aml shade. a.ud near to see the wonderful detail of a wealth of hotel paint splashes; and presenflv vou find fhemtsfeal ing off to gaze lovirigiv, really lovingly at a humble little' hit. which really means an eyeful to them. Contrary as il may seem .these few thoughts are riot writ lon to deride any attempt to improve one's artistic sense, hut only a desire for honest- preferences.