ART EXHIBITION

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20108, 15 May 1935, Page 12

ART EXHIBITION

PICTURES ON VIEW IN TIMARU The exhibition of paintings by a group of South Canterbury artists on the first floor of the Mount Cook Tourist Company’s building in Stafford Street would well repay a visit. Though the exhibitors are very modest concerning their efforts, there are one or two paintings that would really grace an exhibition in a much more important centre, and indeed have been so exhibited. Pictorial art appears to have languished for some years in Timaru, and if this exhibition receives sufficient support to become an annual affair, then it might do much to resuscitate the Art Society which existed some years ago, or at least form the nucleus of a new one. Paintings, however, are made to be §een, and if but a few people visit the exhibition (for which it may be mentioned there is no charge), then there is little incentive to the artists to go to the trouble of exhibiting on another occasion. Such exhibits are also of some value to students, who inspect the paintings "to see how it is done.” Not that it is wise in any way to copy the style or methods of other artists, but a variety of treatment is observable and a broader outlook can be obtained. It would appear that the idea of painting is to record as nearly as possible the impressions received of an object by reason of light falling upon it, and obviously a painter, if he is to be sincere, should record such impression as received by himself, and not as it might appear to somebody else. Art is to some extent a process of selection, and It is the privilege of each artist to select what he considers the most important truth in the appearance of the object or scene he -wishes to represent, rejecting the trivial and unimportant. How far he succeeds in doing so can be gathered by himself from a comparison of his work with others in an exhibition. Who shall be the final judge, however, is another matter, and the battles that rage amongst the authorities add to the difficulties of the mere layman in arriving at an opinion. Every visitor to an exhibition therefore must judge for himself, comforting himself with the reflection that he knows what he likes, or in other words, he likes what he knows.