ART EXHIBITIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 231, 30 September 1929, Page 10

ART EXHIBITIONS.

THE RIGHT THING TO SAY. HIS EXCELLENCY'S EDUCATION PLEA FOR DELIBERATION. Since coming to New Zealand he had learned something about art in. this country, said his Excellency the Gover-nor-General, Sir Charles Fergusson, when opening the annual exhibition ot the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts. Ho had learnt, said his Excellency, to talk of "atmosphere," "balance," "middle distance," "rhythm," and that blessed word "values." (Laughter.) When he was taken round an exhibition of pictures, as no doubt he would be that evening by the president, he knew exactly what to eay, and very often he impressed his guide. (Laughter.) He had, for instance, cured himself of saying decisively of some picture, "I like that," and then from the silence that- ensued learning that he had "put his foot in it" very badly. (Laughter.) He also knew how, when his guide made cabalistic signs before some painting, to take thu advice given in the Book of Ecclesiastes and "Be as one that knoweth much and yet holdeth his tongue." (Laughter.) A plea for deliberate judgment on new ideas in art was made by his Excellency. He referred, he said, to those pictures described in "Punch" by a Philistine addressing himself and saying, "Is it, or am I?" (Laughter.) "I suppose," he said, "the world is always moving on and new effects come in. When these new impressions are given effect to and portrayed on canvas, there are two ways of looking at them, and probably both are wrong. . . . Some, because the hing is new, applaud it and think that t must be right, and crack it up in every way just because it is new. Others, just because it is new, decry it and abuse it and have nothing good to say about it. But if we follow them we are unfair to the artist and may land ourselves in difficulties. We should keep an open mind, and be deliberate in our judgment; not in a hurry to judge ' one way or the other. In " that way we are not only fair to our own judg- ' ment but fair to the artist as well." *