The Wanganui Chronicle. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1947. THE MUSINGS OF MUNNINGS

Wanganui Chronicle, 27 December 1947, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1947. THE MUSINGS OF MUNNINGS

CIR ALFRED MUNNINGS, President of the Royal Academy in . England, has been saying some interesting things concerning his particular field of endeavour. “To-day in Britain there are more experts on art, more writers on art, more teachers than actual painters.” What a comical situation, and yet it is no doubt true enough! It would be'interesting to learn what is an art expert? For instance when a public gallery anywhere in the world wants to purchase a picture whom does it consult? Are they experts and if so what is their qualification which enables them to claim expert status? Has one of the gentlemen received any art education at all? If so well and good, but if not, Iww are the pictures selected for purchase? If it be true that none of these has any worthwhile expert, knowledge of pictures and of art what encouragement is there for anyone to engage in artistic work of integrity? It is desirable to have experts on art, but it is also desirable to know an expert when one meets him. Too often the expertness is non-existent and that is one of the reasons for the lack of quality in much of modern art. Writers on art and teachers thereof should also be expert in their particular lines; but here again there is not much encouragement for the workei to become expert. The newspaper in New Zealand that is recognised as having an expert critic who really knows what he is writing about is the exception not the rule. Too often the critic dwells on small details of a picture and leaves the larger faults alone simply because he does not know of their presence. The teaching of art in England is on a much higher plane than it is in New Zealand. This is due to a variety of causes but chief among them in New Zealand is the inability of the principal of a State school to remove a lazy or incompetent art teacher. Art is practiced on an amateur basis in this Dominion simply because art is largely ignored. There is not a single work of art in any local body office in the Wanganui district from Bulls to Taihape and north to New Plymouth. Many people who would claim to be cultured do not possess one single original work of art of any kind. The result of this neglect of art is that good practitioners cannot hope to remain in this country and live by their work. The supply is therefore cut down, public, taste is low, and art appreciation for all the healthy urge in that direction is a woebegone affair. Most of the prints offered for sale in the shops are of pictures that were produced back in the last century. The commercial community is not any the wit less to blame than the local bodies for the discouragement of art. Too often commonplace prints are purchased wholesale and sent out on calendars as the best that can be done in the way of appreciation. One of the results of this artistic poverty is that mediocre productions carrying a name that years after became famous are purchased with the idea that they must be good. It only requires the viewer to stand back and look at the production with commonsense vision to see that it is lacking in quality. But fear rides the purchaser and the signature is the passport to safety. It is refreshing to have Sir Alfred Munnings praising the workmanship of Millais, Holbein, Reynolds, Leighton and Sargent when compared with the work of Picasso. Picasso’s work is said to be revolutionary, b*it is it? A revolutionary artist is one who desires to upset a tradition and to supplan' it with another. Picasso paints nonsensically. Two eyes on the one side of the face are legitimate for him. So they would be for a lunatic. His forms are deliberately out of proportion and inharmonious in themselves. They are not new forms, they are not forms, but distortions without an idea to inform them. Artists have always employed exaggeration. Michaclaugelo did so. But he did it with intention and with purpose. It would be difficult to discover Picasso’s purpose. But he is a modern and as such is to be bowed down to. Does Picasso laugh at the world of which he is making such huge fun?

Immediately man departs from nature he goes cranky. That is precisely why art is unsure of itself. The artist has no modern standard of truth wherewith to judge his own work: the critic's approval is the pathway to public notice and if the critic has no standard then the whole affair becomes a nightmare. Under such conditions it is small wonder that the younger men take for subjects back streets on-the slant, and glory in portraying dirty hovels and dirtier people performing dirtier doings. Much modern “art” is nasty and some of it is horrible. Why learn to draw when abortions are called for? Why study anatomy when grotesques are acceptable?

The fact is that anarchy reigns in the art world because men have forgotten the canons of art or in the name of modernism turn their hacks on them. Art is the hand-maiden of truth and beauty. When these are allowed to depart it does not matter how many teachers there are the worker becomes benighted and knows not where to go nor what to do. When the artist becomes lost art dies. It is about time there was a return to fundamentals and sanity. That is what Munnings is saying. It is to be hoped that he will be heeded. 'i