TILT AT DOMINION.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20248, 17 July 1937, Page 10

TILT AT DOMINION.

A FACETIOUS VISITOR. “RESPECTABLE CHRISTCHURCH.” (By Telegrapn.—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH Friday. “While I was in the North Island I was told that I would find Christchurch a good, solid city. That sounded as though Christchurch must be eminently respectable, and respectable’ things can be dull,’’ said Mr Arthur Lismer, director of the Toronto Art Gallery, in a racy talk at the luncheon of the Christchurch Rotary Club. Mr Lismer said he felt quite' entitled to tell New Zealand “where it got off.” Having made one break, he could easily make another. When he landed at Auckland the other day, and was asked where he came from, he replied that ho had come over from the' mainland. One of the members of the Education Conference, he added, had said that New Zealand was something like Australia in the' respect that, although it believed In the three R’s, they were not reading, writing and arithmetic, but Rugby, radio and racing. “Some very dreadful tilings are happening here' in education, hut I won’t deal with them now,” Mr Lismer continued.

After giving a humorous definition of art, he said lie had lectured at the Art Gallery, and It was “like lecturing inside a morgue' with all these dead

things hanging on the walls.” Art was part of the civic consciousness. It was part of their duty to interest themselves in the appearance of their city. The ugly sky signs were one of the curses of the age, but for tunatcly the standard of art in New Zealand and Australia was not high enough to produce great billboards.