Art in Terms of the Modern Woman.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18805, 6 July 1929, Page 19 (Supplement)

Art in Terms of the Modern Woman.

By ROSITA FORBES . (Noted Authoress and Traveller J

TMIE modern woman is not yet a fact. At present she is no more than an aspect of a life which, in the last century, has quickened in speed and range from an average of six miles an hour to one of sixty. The old painters sought to portray an existence whose conditions were static. The I iconoclasts of 1929 have realised that they cannot simultaneously reproduce every dimension of modern life. They can and do give a vivid impression of its speed, its angularity, its groping power, its chaos, its mechanisation, and so on. For a thousand years artists have been painting what they saw, or what their hearts imagined. Thus, we had the scarlet of Ingres’s courts of judgment, and the umbrian crucifixions wrought by the tenderness of Perugino. The moderns are painting what they feel with their brains and, because the modern woman lives almost entirely by her brain, she is closely related te the art which portrays the stark bleak* ness of her emotions, or vigour of her physical reactions, rather than the noncommittal elegance of her made-to-appearance.

At present modern women and mo - ern art are both frankly destructive. We’ve got to clear a jungle of old prejudices and precepts before we can build the new edifice of which we dream. It is very hard work and it is discouraging, because the jungle is fertile with the growth of centuries and many of the pioneers are suffocated by the stranglehold of the conventions they attack. All other ages have been typified by the personalities they produced. Catherine and Paul of Russia represented the half-crazy despotism of ignorance. Caesare Borgia stood for the cruelty, gallantry, and intrigue of the Renaissance; Napoleon for the militarisna aroused by improving armaments; Joan of Arc for the age of mysticism; Alexander for that of war as an adventure and a career. But what men or women will represent our century? The spirit of 1929 is not Fascist or Bolshevik. It is not typified by any human being, but by certain elements, which modern art seizes and transfer* to canvas in a manner as crude and violent as the originals. (Continued on Page 23.)