WORLD OF ART

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22191, 19 August 1935, Page 6

WORLD OF ART

VISITING PAINTER'S VIEWS EPSTEIN NOT UNDERSTOOD Describing art in England as luiing at a very low ebb financially, and art in Australia as floating ,on an easygoing- tide—so far as work was concerned—that would lead nowhere, Mr. J. H. Young, a landscape pairter, of London, and a former New Zee lander, who is viuiting the Dominion for the second time in.45 years, said, when interviewed in Wellington, ths.t the trend of art in England was t) get back to the sound, solid basis givun by the Old Masters. "A good deal of the slump in art I attribute to dealers who have tried to force upon the public this new art, or 60-ca lied art," said Mr. Young. "A man wishing to purchase a p cturo calls on a dealer and is shown something the significance of which neither he nor the dealer, nor, in f?ci, the artisit, knows. The story goes: The purchaser-'says. 'What is it?' lie art dealer replies, 'What is it? What does it matter ?' And so the purchaser, pointing to something sound, a solid painting, something he docs understand, says, 'That's the one ] want.' And tho dealer sneers and laughii, and consequently the purchaser suyu, 'X won't buy anything.' "That is my view, and Mr. Lionel Lindsay, one of the finest etchers in the world and a groat art critic, puts a good deal down to that, a pari from the general slump throughou.; tho world. "Portrait painters can make anything up 7 to £IO,OOO a year, bus the paintings must be good. There ;s money iri art for the great artist, but they are very few and far between." Asked England thought of Epstein, Mr. Young said people did not understand him. "I have scon great things of his," he said, "and feel quite sure that he is a great artist, but some of the work he does I sin ply do not understand, and I do not think half of those who pretend to i.dmire understand." Young is spending ten (lays in New Zealand, in- which time ie will visit relatives in Christchurch, Auckland and Timaru.