A PLEA FOR MODERN ART

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22098, 31 October 1933, Page 15

A PLEA FOR MODERN ART

The Duke of Gloucester, who was the chief guest at the British Royal Academy banquet, made a plea for modern art, suggesting that “we are often apt to allow antiquity to take the place of art, and that our veneration for some of the older objets d’art is really based upon their historical interest rather than upon their intrinsic aesthetic worth. The tact that such objects have survived provides probably the real reason for our admiration in a great many cases. It must, it seems, be the survival of the past. Many generations have seen fit to guard and preserve these objects, often against the grasping hand of an invading enemy, and they seem, therefore, to be worthy of our admiration. As a matter of fact, they may have survived by accident and not by design, and in any case the judgment of past generations may have been of too conservative a nature. There are some pictures which really are only remarkable for the fact that the paint has kept its colour' for so many years. But the actual mixing of paint is devoid of emotion and expression, though it is a step towards the ultimate goal of fame which no artist can afford to neglect. "I am not really trying to decry the art which 1 ha s established itself in the judgment of past centuries, and which gives us all so much pleasure to-day, but 1 should like to make a plea for the modern artist whose works are apt to be ruthlessly disregarded, not necessarily condemned, and who may have to wait in the grave a great many years before his art will receive the appreciation to which a meaningless lapse of time will eventually entitle it. “Let us thank the artists of to-day who, without the encouragement of many rich art patrons, are still providing food for human imagination, are depicting the beauty of character in a portrait, the beauty of the human form, and the beauty of the countryside.”