PAINTING AND ART

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23044, 23 May 1938, Page 11

PAINTING AND ART

NECESSARY ELEMENTS ADDRESS AT EXHIBITION In an address on "Picture Making and Art," given on Saturday evening at the annual exhibition in the Unity Hal! of the Auckland Society of Arts, Mr. H. Tornquist dealt with qualities that might reasonably be expected in a painting. Art was not an imitation, but an interpretation of nature, Jig said. When Due looked at the coldly perfect and sterile naturalistic painting of the last L-cntury, it was little wonder that some modern painters had declared representation to be a detriment in painting sufficient in itself to preclude a picture from being classed as a work of urt. Most lovers of painting were modern enough, in outlook to consider representation as irrelevant in so far [is the aesthetic value of a picture was concerned. The representative element should remain only an element and not the object of painting—an element to bo used only so far as the artist desired, or in accordance with what he realised to bo the limitations of his medium or of his own powers. This did not mean that a picture which whs purely representational must be a bad picture, Mr. Tornquist continued, but a picture-could be a ? ood picture without being good art. Picture-making was the job of the draftsman, but to produce art was the ivork of the artist. It mattered not ivhat craft he adopted provided he used die elements of that craft in proper jalance. Jt mattered not whether he ised many or few, or even if he abused hem according to accepted convention, provided they were? in proper balance. I'lie quality which, existing in a paintng, caused it to be not just a picture mt art, although detectable by the ntellect, was not measurable except