ART

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21909, 19 September 1934, Page 15

ART

Sir, —While agreeing that Mr. Oliver Pocock's definition of art is quite good, I can't help thinking it a very great pity anyone should allow their soul to get into such a state that they want to produce the work the modernists do. Perhaps as things are, if Orpen and his contemporaries had known of my definition, they would have thought it the best, but if it is rambling, that is far better than rambling right away from art. Anyway, it seems the modernists are completely lacking in soul, and to get their ideas they must surely suffer extensively from nightmare. Why are they so rude, cross and snappy when people resent the modern idea of art and have the courage to say so. Everybody knows C. H. Goklie as an artist, and I don't suppose he will care if the modernists laugh at his articles. People who produce the work they do are certain to be quite lacking in a sense of humour, and so would bo likely to laugh at anything or nothing. If tne pictures I like can be reproduced, why not the modernists' work too? Do even machines resent having anything to do with the moderu freaks of art and refuse to print them? A little while ago it was said that people were making "loose and random remarks about hideousness." Well, no one can deny that the modern idea of drawing is random in the extreme. Present-day music and literature are in just as much of a mess as art. Mr. Pocock says "intelligent people don't like listening to the rumble, roar, squeaks and rattles of a busy street on their way to a concert." Quite so, for when a jazz band is in full swing they have to listen to all this din and worse, and get their nerves shaken up quite enough then. Eve Vaile.