THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, MAY 8, 1923. THE PRINCE AT THE ACADEMY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18856, 8 May 1923, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, MAY 8, 1923. THE PRINCE AT THE ACADEMY.

It is the lot of the Prince of Wales to talk of many things, and his gift it is to find the appropriate thing to say on each occasion. Even for him, however, it may well have been something of an ordeal to speak on art before the members of the Royal Academy. For art has its deep waters, and Academicians know their own worth. The more so then, can we admire the facility with which his Royal Highness conducted down an avenue of happily suggestive thought the distinguished Assembly of which he was the guest of honour. It is hardly to be suggested that his discourse was a defence of British art — for British art needs no apologist—though its tendency may appear to have

been in that direction. Rather may we judge it to have been a vindication of British ideals with art as a leading motif. The misunderstanding of the British character among the Continental peoples, born of British reserve and reticence, doubtless still survives to a considerable extent. Napoleon’s spiteful epigram will always be kept alive, and used to crown an envious or disparaging commentary. But the so-called “nation of shopkeepers” is fortunately blest with an abiding sense of humour. Very far from being a reason for humiliation or oven humility are its achievements in art as an expression of the national character. The felicity of the illustration painted by the Prince in his reference to the beauty and dignity of the graveyards of the British dead in France and Flanders could scarcely be surpassed. A nation which can thus express itself in its memorial shrines, can be credited with the true afflatus, and cannot be reproached with lack of inspiration. When wo turn to reflections upon progress or decadence in art we do well to bear in mind the words of Ruskin, “Every nation, perhaps every generation, has in all probability some peculiar gift, some particular character of mind, enabling it to do something different from, or something in some sort better than, what has been done before.” In repudiating the idea that industrial and artistic developments are necessarily antagonistic, the Prince of Wales endorses a view that is not seriously assailable. Curious as it may appear, it is not in regions most bountifully enriched by Nature that the people are most pron to' manifest susceptibility to artistic suggestion. An industrial State is as likely to make progress in art as one which lives by agriculture. It is, indeed, more likely to do so. Art, it must be remembered, covers a field in w'hich the painter and the sculptor occupy but a corner. As Academicians may be supposed to think mainly, however, in terms of pictorial art, this form of expression was'largely the theme of the Prince of Wales’s address to them. To the Prince we are indebted for a striking phrase in his description of the commercial hoardings of our streets as “the art galleries of the great public.” Unquestionably these hoardings, decorated to catch the public eye, must exercise some kind ,of influence upon the minds of those who pass and repass them every day, and it is satisfactory to, have evidence, even in this part of the world, of the very considerable improvement in the quality of such displays that has been brought about hi recent years. The Academician is not ashamed to see his work reproduced upon street hoardings for advertising purposes. If the commercial aspect of such a relationship should invite criticism there is always the unanswerable rejoinder that, seeing that there must be advertising displays, it is highly desirable that they should be of artistic merit. So the. Academician may indulge the reflection that in permitting his work to be given a publicity of this kind he is contributing to the general good. Certainly good hoarding displays may educate the eye of the beholder. Therefore, let them be truly good to look at. As the Prince of Wales has observed, their influence in bringing colour and decoration to otherwise gray and monotonous streets is not to be despised.