THE MAORI AS AN ARTIST

Te Ao Hou, July 1958, Page 54

THE MAORI AS AN ARTIST by Renzo Padovan A. H. & A. W. Reed 42/- It is time Maori art came out of the museum, out of the meeting house, into our homes and our lives. “The Maori as an Artist” is a fine book of lithographs that could well grace any bookshelf. My only wish was that it were a loose-leaf folder, so that the better pictures such as “Small female figure”, “tekoteko”, “poupou” or “detail of the interior of a meeting house” could go on my wall. It would be a shame to cut such an expensive book, but I found some of these lithographs much better than others. Many are clear-cut, accurate copies of carvings and artifacts from the Dominion Museum, but several only suggest the original without the same simplicity of scope and complexity of detail. It is unfortunate that more is not being done, either through photographs or lithographs such as these to preserve Maori carving, an art that has suffered much with the passing of time. I am sorry that Renzo Padovan's talent aligned only on objects already preserved in the Dominion Museum (all except one), when there are so many little-known or unknown carvings out in the wind and the weather, carvings that will one day be lost to us, unless we realise, as Renzo Padovan does, the value and the workmanship that is all too often concealed or neglected as at Tama pahore or at Whakatohea. The finest tribute we can pay to the mana of the carvers of the past is to preserve their tapu their mana, their thoughts, all that remain of them in the wood that will not endure without our care. A book like “The Maori as an Artist” is valuable, in that it helps the New Zealander, both Maori and Pakeha, to care for this distinctively New Zealand art. Tini Whetu Te Aute