ART AND THE LAW

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 6025, 9 October 1906, Page 4

ART AND THE LAW

Considering tiro time which he : took over it, tho Auckland Magistrate who has just affirmed tho purity and iuoffensiToucse of a postcard reproduction of the well-known picture of “ Pysohc’s Bath ” might have given us something better than he did in delivering judgment. Everybody knows that the picture is perfectly proper in itself, and as pictures are painted to be looked at, .the offence, where there is an offence, begins at the palette and not in tho shop window. Tho reasoning which admits propriety in tho painting of a picture, but condemns its exhibition, or the exhibition of copies of it, is a little too subtle for us. The Magistrate “ did not hold that photographs of these pictures ought to bo indiscriminately exhibited, and sold to boys and girls, and perhaps most people will agree with him. But a picture which cannot be “indiscriminately exhibited' wo moan a picture which professes to be merely a public expression of artistic feeling, and not a special production designed for private utility—ought not to bo publicly exhibited at all. It is an improper picture. Apparently the extraordinary suggestion was made during the hearing of tho Auckland case that art is destructive of morals, for the Magistrate declared that “ if it was true that the_ indiscriminate exhibition in shop windows of works of pure art was found to be prejudicially affecting the public morals to any appreciable extent, it might be tho duty of Parliament to legislate on tho subject 1” How “works of pure art ” can debase the public morals, how Parliament can measure such debasement—these are things to puzzle the wisest man. The statutes are hardworked already, but it is surely expecting too much to ask them to oolvo the undying problem, “ Wlpit is art?