OLD AND NEW ART

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23200, 21 November 1938, Page 14

OLD AND NEW ART

LOAN EXHIBITION COMPARATIVE GROUPING FINE COLOUR PRINTS People who believe that an unbridgeable gulf lies between modern painters and the old masters may find cause to revise their opinion alter seeing a comparative exhibition which is to be opened in. the Auckland Art Gallerj this week, probably on Wednesday. The' exhibition consists of colourreproductions of nearly 50 old and modern paintings and several of etchings and engravings. r lhe works are arranged in pairs, and occasionally in groups of three, so that the treatment of a particular subject by artists widely separated in time may be studied. In this way it is possible to gain a clear idea of similarities and dfferences in outlook and method. Carnegie Corporation's Gilt The prints, which are of the very highest quality, were presented to the National Art Gallery of New Zealand by the Carnegie Corporation of Xe»v York for exhibition in Wellington and in the other public galleries of the Dominion. They are now on tour and the corporation has made a grant sufficient to cover the cost of transport. Nearly every grouping of pictures in the collection is intriguing. Some show contrasts that could hardly be more extreme, while others reveal similarities that would scarcely be credited without an actual demonstration. For example, "St. Martin's Festival," by Pieter Breughel (1525-69) is almost identical in subject and treatment with "Street Fair," by the Mexican modernist, Diego Ilivera. Giorgione's "Sleeping Venus" and "Fete Cliampetre" compare closely in every respect with Edouard Manet's " Olympia" and "Breakfast on the Grass," respectively, but it is not impossible that when ho his two works Manet had the others in mind. Underlying Likeness Vcrmecr's famous "View of Delft" is placed beside "La Cite," by Signac, and his "Little Street in Delft" beside "Walled Street," by -Utrillo. Three harvest scenea by Pieter Breughel, Van Gogh and Cezanne invite close inspection, as do Poussin's "Itealm of Flora" and Cezanne's "Judgment of Paris." "View of Toledo," by/El Greco, is even more highly stylised and remote from literalism than its modern companion. " View" of Amsterdam," by Oscar Kokoschka. .Raphael's "Madonna del Gl-afiduccaV is contrasted with "Mother and Child," by Picasso. Naturally 110 attempt lias been made to find early counterparts for modern abstract and surrealist paintings, but a very advanced work by Morgner entitled "The Entry into Jerusalem" has been paired with a representation of the subject by Fra Angelico. The exhibition as a whole shows that the best modern painters and the old masters are brothers in art, and have been moved by the same primarv impulse, which breaks through all the influences of time and environment.