NEW ZEALAND ART

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22469, 13 July 1936, Page 12

NEW ZEALAND ART

Sir, —A short time ago a letter appoured in your columns criticising the exhibition of the Society of Arts. Your correspondent holds that the elder and more conventional forms of art are better than this so-called, modernism, ■which is really only a revival of ancient primitive art. I agree with him. The Art Society is an organisation of moderns, who will not permit the pictures of older and more finished artists being hung in their exhibitions for fear that their works would suffer by contrast. Live and let live is my motto, but this the moderns will not do. They wage an incessant warfare against the truer forms of art. No artist who paints true to life is admitted to the societies. It is about time that New Zealand's painters realised the menace that overhangg New Zealand art. "8.0.X." may think that the old school of painters has died out, but this is not so. There are still many who do fino work or until recently *did beautifnl paintings. The old generation is passing, however, and unless some organisation is prepared to keep alight the flame of true art it will be submerged ,in this flood of primitive freakishness. All lovers of beauty and all painters who strive for beauty and fidelity in art should form a society for the preservation of true art. A collection of pictures should be made each year, and if the present-day painters' work does not meet the standard required, there are plenty of beautit'ul and inspiring pictures painted in other times which could be drawn on for the collection. This collection would be shown in every large city in New Zealand and thus show up bv contrast the crude, ugly and uninspiring work done by the school of modern artists. The majority of the public would, \ am sure, prefer the work of the painters who make a sincere effort to portray their subject faithfully. If such a society were formed and the public had the opportunity of seeing of New Zealand's beauties and New Zealand's people well painted, modern art would soon disappear. But if no steps are taken in the right direction, a generation will grow up which will worship monstrosities of art such as those of Epstein and call them beautiful. M.V.H.