INDUSTRIALISM AND ART.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18897, 25 June 1923, Page 10

INDUSTRIALISM AND ART.

MIRROR OF NATION’S MIND. EFFECT OF DECADENCE 1 IN ART. •From Our Own Correspondent.)^ • LONDON, May 9. As usual, tlicre was a brilliant assembly at the Royal Academy banquet, the chief guest being the Prince of Wales. Sir .Tames Allen was one of those privileged to attend. in reply to the toast proposed by Sir Aston Webb (the president), the Prince of Wales made a- notable speech. “It has been my privilege in the last few years,’’ he said, “to speak at a great variety of gatherings of distinguished men—some of them concerned with industry, the life-blood in the veins of our Empire; some with social welfare, others with sport, which has over been a, common meeting-ground for all sections of the British race; but 1 cannot help feeling that this annual gathering stands,alone and apart as a national signpost, so ,to speak, pointing the way to that refinement of ideals which is a vital necessity to the progress and prosperity of any great people, in these days of hurry and bustle, of economic riddles and reconstruction problems, many—the present company most decidedly excepted—may be apt to minimise the importance of the arts. “But we have only to turn the pages of history to realise that a nation’s art is the mirror of its inner mind; the quality of the one is a true reflection of the quality of the other. Decadence in art has always denoted degeneration in the community at large; but health and virility in painting, sculpture, architecture, music, or literature —health and virility in these arts ere invariably a token that the outlook and ideals of a community are sound. In the opinion of many good judges a new and vigorous tone in British art has been apparent ever since the nation was plunged into the fiery ordeal of war. How far tho war has directly influenced the development of the several arts 1 cannot venture to say; but that it has made their development indirectly easier I am quite certain. In some way or other— I cannot explain it—it has left the average man more sensitive to artistic suggestion, more particular about the outward appearance of the things that matter to him. That has come home to me very forcibly in the last few days. MORE VIGOROUS ARTISTIC SENSE. “I have just returned .from a tour of the battlefields in Belgium and Northern France, in tho course of which I visited many of the graveyards whore our British dead now lie. These cemeteries were built and cared for by the Imperial War Graves Commission. These graveyards owe their existence to a universally expressed wish of the great mass of British people; and they owe their form, their very real beauty and dignity, both in- their general appearance and in tho detail of the many fine memorials they contain, to the possibly unconscious, but none tho less genuine, love of beauty which that people possesses. I would like to thank those distinguished Royal Academicians who have helped to make these cemeteries beautiful. A decadent race could never have produced the men who lie there; and. equally, a decadent race could never have so fittingly perpetuated their memory. Other considerations, too, make mo believe that our national artistic sense is vigorous. I suppose tho appellation bestowed on the British people by a great general of the past will never be forgotten; we shall always deserve the concealed compliment implied by our being styled a ‘Nation of shopkeepers.’ If we are, we have never been ashamed of it. But to do, I think, justly resent one quite Unfair inference which is sometimes drawn from this epigram of Napoleon’s—namely, that because we keep the shop successfully, we totally neglect the shop window; that because we have a certain commercial shrewdness, ,we are totally unappreciative of art. ART OF THE HOARDINGS. “From my own experience I can disprove such a charge; at one time and another I have seen a good deal of the industrial life of this country; and in tho course of the next few weeks, in the Midlands, in Yorkshire, and at Newcastle, I hope to add to what has always been an absorbing study to me, and one which has left me feeling, prouder of my fellowcountrymen than I was before. ' And I do not believe for one moment that Industrialism and Artistic development are . necessarily antagonistic, and that because a man has keen business vision he is artistically blind. ‘‘On the contrary, I have always been impressed by the fact that in the business and working community, the artistic ideal is very much alive, and only needs an outlet for its expression. In such a distinguished company as this I feel diffident of saying anything which may savour of presumption on my ,part ; but, as a layman and an onlooker, I would make one suggestion to you who have left your mark on this generation in so unmistakable a manner. Such an outlet could, I believe, bo found in that much-discussed branch of art—The Art of the Hoardings. A PLEA. “Not so very long ago (hose dreary barricades of notices that marred the walls and waste places of onr big cities were merely unsightly, and.contained no pictorial art whatever. They might now bo called, without exaggeration the Art Galleries of the great public. Advertisements are now recognised ag a most necessary adjunct to the business side of life; their refinement has advanced by such leaps and bounds ns to justify one in calling them artistic. Their influence, if only because they bring odour and decoration to an otherwise grey and monotonous street, is surely not to bo despised. Mav I suggest to you that here is one possible channel for reaching and satisfying the elementary love of pictorial art which is hidden in the hearts of practically everyone.’’ EMPIRE PARTNERS. Mr Anjery (First Lord of tho Admiralty), responding on behalf of tho senior service, referred to tho great curtailment which had recently taken place, and said that little more than a more nucleus of tho navy had survived the sweeping reductions of the last few years. In this process they had been able to do little more than keep alive tho traditions' of tho past and secure the foundations for the navy of the future. It was to the future that they had to give consideration, and it was the forward view that directed and inspired them. On the material side they had to look to the aid of science and research work, and on the moral side they could provide the best of all incentives the traditions of the past. They also needed the forward view in regard to tho strategic position. With tho surrender of the German navy concenTration in home waters had lost its meaning, and they had now to consider a- new centre in the middle seas for the navy of the Empire. The forward view also made them realise that they could no longer look only to this small island in the North Sea for the full strength of an Empire navy; but that it must depend on all partners and the full development of the resources and manhood of the great commonwealth of the Empire. It was to the younger navies of the Empire, based upon strong and growing communities and linked with our s in the most intimate associations of tradition and training, that they must look to the future as well as to the memory of the imperishable past. WHEN PAINTING SEEKS AID OF LITERATURE.

Koplying for Literature, Sir Owen Seaman said in the relations between painting and literature those engaged in the latter sometimes called in illustrations to their aid. Those illustrations were largely confined to the wrapper. The position of' the wrapper was rather significant.—(Laughter.) It was folded outside the volume, and in the same way the illustrator often seemed not to have had the curiosity to penetrate into the volume and to see what it was that he was illustrating.—(Laughter.) Sometimes he did peep inside, and then he tried to help (he leading public to realise those ideals of the author which escaped articulate utterance — which the author in ' language found it so hard to demonstrate.

If .the illustrator did not always succeed in making the public realise what those ideals were, at least ho succeeded in making them realise what they wore not.--(Laughter.) And that was something. The ordinary was left to his subjective devices, sometimes to realise a type of the beauty created by the author, and then he caught sight of an illustration, and he said, “I never quite realised to my satisfaction what Gladys was like, but I am morally certain sho was not like that.” “Well,” said Sir Owen, "all that is very helpful. I mean it clears the air, and I hove often wished that we on our part could moie often reciprocal e this helpfulness. A'lcr all, when yon choose the titles for your pictures—and what would a picture be witnouf a title? —(laughter)—you do in your amateur way emplo” literature, in however humble a form.” • .