THE MODERN MOVEMENT IN ART.

Otago Witness, Issue 3802, 25 January 1927, Page 73

THE MODERN MOVEMENT IN ART.

“ Please,” I said humbly, “ what is the modern movement ? ” They all looked at me as though I were something escaped from the zoo. “ Why, it's ” “ Oh, don’t you know ? ” “ But I thought everybody ” . Roskowski’s voice, the voice of the master, put the others to rout. “ The modern movement,” he said solemnly, rather as a Jeremiah might have spoken to the Baal worshippers, "is a movement towards primitivism and consequent recognition of formal significance as distinct from mere formal repreIhntation.” I found this very difficult.- “ Will you tell me,” I said, “ I expect I am rather slow, but will you tell me the difference between formal significance and formal representation ? ” “ Formal representation,” said Roskowski, “ is the vulgar photographic method taught by the professors and practised by the pundits. In the system of these cultured mandarins forms are slavishly copied, and are rendered as disgustingly lifelike as possible. Formal * significance, on the other hand, is obtained when mere intellectual associations are rejected, and one’s aesthetic emotion about an object is akne considered valuable. You thus get a rendering, not of mere superficial traits and aspects, but of —er —well, of significant form.” “ I understand the first part,” 1 said, “ about the professors and pundits and mandarins, but I am not quite clear about the second. What do you mean exactly by significant form?” I saw the sallow girl glance with an amazed expression at the young man with the cheek bones, but I did not care. When I am on the track of new know’ledge the thickness of my skin is almost unpuncturable. " Well, you know,” said Roskowski, with a hint of impatience, “ I think the words explain themselves, don’t they ? ” “ No,” _.I replied, “ I think the words don’t.” Richard, at my side, chuckled, but, reproved by a look from Delia, rei lapsed into sulkiness, Norma Baddeley proved an unexpected ally. “ I support Miss Lorimer,” she said. “ I haven’t the vaguest idea what you mean by significant form. As for those pictures of Duncan Grant’s, I think they’re merely ridiculous. That one of Eve reminds me of a little boy’s draw Ting of his most hated teacher - on his school slate. Define ‘significant form,’ please, Mr Roskow’ski.” “ Well,” said Roskowski, puffing at his cigarette, “ I suppose one might define it as an arrangement of form and colour —for "the distinction between

colour and form is artificial—in such a way as to provoke aesthetic emotion in the onlooker.” “ I’ve got that,” I said, “ but doesn’t all art —good art —provoke aesthetic emotion in the onlooker? Tn wdiat way, then, does the art of which Cezanne was the father differ from the art of which Cezanne wasn’t the father? Is it necessary to represent objects as distortedly or as crudely as possible in order to make them formally significant? And do you wipe out all the pundits who merely represented — Uecello, Raphael, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Whistler? Fancy Whistler a pundit! He’d love that—as beneath'notice.” “ Who on earth was Uecello ? ” growled Richard, sotto voce; “ never heard of the little beast.” Richard, I thought, was rather overplaying the sedulous Philistine. “ You ought to know that,” I said severely; “he was the father of perspective.” A young man with a blue chin stepped into the conversation. “ Accurate representation,” he said nasally, “ does not necessarily destroy formal significance, but its tendency is to do so. The tendency is, after a young primitive community have evolved a vital, living art out of their passion for significant form, for a kind of lassitude to set in, in which significance is sacrificed to representation. Thus you get the vulgar humanism of the post-Franciscian painters after the glorious non-realistic paintings of the early Byzantines.” I couldn’t help thinking as I looked at the young man with the blue chin that in ; young primitive community, white-hot with passion for significant form, he would have stood a poor chance of survival. “Do you mean to say,” said Norma Baddeley indignantly, “that while the Madonnas and children were completely unhuman, and stood about on gilt backgrounds, they W’ere the glorious productions of a young vital community, and that when the Infant Jesus became a living Baby, and His mother had flowers and trees and sheep to look at they w r ere the symptoms of artistic lassitude? What nonsense! ” “ Good old Norma! ” said Delia laughing; “ always on the side of the angels.” “ At anyrate, Delia,” retorted Norma Baddeley, “ the angels I am on the side of look like angels; they don’t look like bananas.”—From “ John—Barbara,” by Kathleen O’Brien.