LITERARY ART IN AUSTRALIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21544, 16 January 1932, Page 4

LITERARY ART IN AUSTRALIA

“Art In Australia: Hugh M'Crae Number." Illustrated by Adrian Feint. Sydney: Art lai Australia, Ltd. (3s 9d net.) In a world in which so many publications deal with literature and so comparatively few with art, it is perhaps a pity that Art in Australia, Ltd., should enlarge its scope to exhibit a writer' instead of an artist. This criticism is, however, not fair to Mr Hugh M'Crae, who Happens to be both a writer and an artist with words, or to Mr Adrian Feint, the illustrator, whose several contributions certainly represent art, if of a somewhat Srecious and perverse variety. The Hugh I'Crae number of “Art In Australia” does justice to a graceful _ Australian author, and at the same time pays a tribute to a type of Australian literary manifestation that is rare. It is some 1 what remarkable .that in the robust Commonwealth one of the foremost writers is drawing his inspiration from French sources and the mannered, humorous artificialities of the English naughty nineties. The justification is in the success which Mr M'Crae has attained. Some of , these slight tales, essays and fantasies are quite delightful, and transfer legitimately to the Australian scene an atmosphere which is not Australian. “Beach Party: 1886,” for example for shrewdness and nimble humour, could earn a place in any anthology of studied prose. Yet while we find ourself allying Mr M'Crae with tne decadents, we must also assert that in one, almost indefinable-respect he i» likewise typically an Australian. There is a sort of bad-boyish nose-thumbing philosophy, or perhaps merely a trick oil expression, which recurs again and again in the Commonwealth's native prose. It appears to have been fostered by a certain pink-cheeked weekly which has practically dominated Australian literary effort for a very long time, and it is not good. Mr- M'Crae’s work is slightly smeared with this influence—in “ Quodling,” for example—and decidedly to its detriment. This note is, perhaps, ah ungracious one to strike in welcoming Art In Australia’s new departure, and a beautifully-produced M'Crae anthology, and we hasten to make amends by express,ing the pleasure we received from th» volume. hi