ART AND INDUSTRY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18499, 11 September 1934, Page 7

ART AND INDUSTRY

IMPORTANT ALLIANCE

VALUE TO DOMINION

LORD BLEDISLOE’S VIEWS

(Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day.

Speaking at the opening of the exhibij#ion of the Empire art loan collection at Art Gallery yesterday, Lord Bled®)Oe expressed cordial thanks to individuals, as well as institutions, in the Motherland, who, without expense to the Dominion, had rendered the execution of the scheme possible. The collection owed its presence in the Dominion to the enterprise and artistic enthusiasm of Mr. Percy Sargood, ol Dunedin. It comprised pictures executed at different periods during the last 60 years, and the names of the artists represented were a guarantee that it was well worth inspection. Quite appropriately, it included modernist, impressionist, "or cubist, pictures, which, although not conforming to the canons of art laid down by rigid technicians of the old school, were at least characteristic of the post-war period and represented an important phase in artistic taste and expression. He confessed to being among those who were sceptical as to its permanence or cultural value. However, these ebullitions of so-called modernism were not without their value in stemming ultraconservatism in the use of pencil or palette, and stimulating originality of artistic conception.

DISTINCTIVE SCHOOL If New Zealand was to evolve a distinctive school of artistic efforts, inspired, perhaps, by her incomparable scenic endowment and picturesque Polynesian associations and folklore, it was right and proper that she should allow herself the fullest possible freedom in its expression, unfettered by Old World convention or want of reasonable elasticity of technique. The crying need of the day was the intimate "association of art in all its higher manifestations with the lives of the people. The mechanisation of industry, its ever increasing specialisation, and the shrinkage of human industrial effort to a single isolated task in the building up of a single product in our factories had threatened to kill Me soul of man and his artistic instincts, as well as his resourcefulness and creative zeal. If a man was to enjoy greater leisure, he must recover his soul and learn to indulge happily his artistic and literary instincts and cravings, and not merely those of physical hedonism. NATURAL TREASURES Concurrently with the artistic culture of the world’s workers, there should develop an artistic improvement of their industrial output, land artists should be encouraged by industrialists to participate” sympathetically and zealously, in the process. Three centuries ago, craftsmanship and the arts formed one vocation, and craftsmen of the, highest repute were also great artists. There was now a growing consciousness throughout the civilised world that art must be once more married to industry. Opportunities for developing and accelerating this trend were especially abundant in a country like New Zealand, which possessed such natural treasures as greenstone, gold, and richly grained timber, and was in a position to make her future hives of industry things of beauty, instead of blots upon the landscape. Let them carry art into the homes and thoughts of the people and develop a demand for what was beautiful, wellproportioned and spiritually satisfying. It was not necessarily the case that the application of art to the common things of life involved more expense, as, by its encouragement, they would be giving much needed employment to many thousands of people, and, incidentally, augmenting the nation’s most precious asset, namely, its spirituality and love of all that was beautiful, harmonious, and chnobling. _____