ARTISTIC FUTURE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22740, 28 May 1937, Page 15

ARTISTIC FUTURE

GREAT POSSIBILITIES PUBLIC INTEREST NEEDED LEISURE AND CULTURE A call to the community to become conscious of the Dominion's artistic treasure house by a practical interest in art was made by Mr. N. V. Douglas, chairman of the library committee of the, Auckland City Council, in addressing a luncheon gathering of the Auckland Society of Arts yesterday on the development of art in New Zealand. Sir. Douglas held that until the interest of the community as a whole was aroused no national school of art could be evolved. " We should assist to develop art materially in New Zealand and to lay the foundations for a great artistic and cultural future bv which our country, with its great possibilities, may gain art and artists to interpret our heritage," said Sir. Douglas. To develop art in New Zealand was to develop culture because before a country could have culture art had to bo part and parcel of the life of the whole community. While other countries had accepted this viewpoint Kngland stood back.

Sir. Douglas suggested that New Zealand had not gone as far as she might have because the country had not actively encouraged the whole of the community to participate in art. "Slost of the people of Auckland should he brought into the fold," he said, "for I look to the day when the majority will become practical artists in one form of activity or another. Not until then will we find the emergence of a group of great artists. If this city or this country has a school of art it will be the result of mass participation and by a manifestation of the culture of the people as a whole." The increased leisure now available should be given some form of cultural exercise which the people could carry out for themselves because the mass should not be allowed to become armchair critics, added Sir. Douglas. A host of onlookers at an art exhibition did not make artists any more than great crowds at a football match made great footballers.