The Dominion SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 1912. INARTISTIC NEW ZEALAND.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1348, 27 January 1912, Page 4

The Dominion SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 1912. INARTISTIC NEW ZEALAND.

The backwardness of this country in everything relating to art has become a familiar theme, but it is treated in such a vein of . goodhumoured candour by Dr. Max Hep.z, in certain portions of his book on New Zealand, that there will be few to take offence, and, we hope, many to profit. It is not as an original thinker, nor even as an accurate observer, that Dr. Herz impresses us, but simply as a foreigner of the cultured classes, who thinks and says pretty much what the cultivated foreigner is bound to think and say when he takes a run through New Zealand. Hia special merit is his happy way of saying it. There is no difficulty in accepting -his assurance that he loves and admires this country. . Yet he seems to have suffered a good deal all the way up from the Bluff to Auckland. It at the Bluff with a "dully prosaic" oyster saloon, and even the excellent oysters did not avail to j make this first, impression of New Zealand other than disheartening. He found Dunedin "an ugly city." He did not like the greenstone ornaments in the shop windows—"simple and tasteless, but immensely appreciated by the New Zealander" — and, he thought, the bank ought not to have classic columns. He went to the theatre, and envied the babies who slept through tho performance. From Dunedin he coulcl have travelled by rail, but "preferred to stick to the ship." What was he afraid he might see on the Canterbury Plains ? At Christchurcb, he heard from the Cathedral spire, "the most abominable chimes that ever left the hands of a bell-founder." Unfortunately his zeal for our aesthetic improvement is not always according to knowledge, for he described the Christchurch Cathedral as "built in different styles, at different periods, by different architects, with a slender copper-covere'd tower." As for the men and women of Christchurch, they are "not as a rule elegant; except in the afternoons, perhaps, when the ladies go out on the important business of tea-fights and gossiphunting. ... If only they would do their hair better!" He commends the suburbs with their "prettily-kept gardens." The park, too, is "beautifully laid out, but infrequently visited." He moves on to Wellington—"sombre, bare,- and drab." "Even the highest flight of fancy could not call Wellington beautiful or pretty." The Government Buildings are a "perversion of taste"; the statue of Ballaxce is "badly executed"; and "it is scarcely necessary to waste a word" on the Queen's statue. He is somewhat comforted by the business activity of Wellington. "Industry and intelligence give to the Empire City the beauty that Nature has denied her"—complimentary to the citizcns, but grossly unfair to Nature. Auckland, in the spring sunshine, is "a gav and refreshing picture"— until the traveller steps ashore. The city is not laid out beautifully, and the General Post Office is "painted the colour of curry." ''At present a new General Post Office is being built, but, like the Town Hall, in an unsuitable place and impossible style." The people's clothes, as in the other cities, are "serviceable, though not elegant." "The young girls, here, perhaps, more than anywhere else, are, for m.y taste, far too fnnd of a fluffy, flimsy Htyls of drew, [ waving ribbons and fluUciiag kcc^

too much frippery and imitation finery." Taking another glance aI. the public buildings, he grieves that none of them arc "monumental." "The Ai't Society's Hall is a fearful construction, something like a donkey's face in stone." Within, he looks in vain for any expression of "the new spirit of Art," though "this gallery is certainly miles ahead of similar places in Christchurch and Dunedin, where soiled canvas hangs like washing on a clothes line." We ought to be grateful to him for not saying anything about Wellington's little gallery. He has a word of! praise for Mr. Goldie's Maori j heads, hut "the absolute failure of the New Zealand landscape painter is very distressing." In the Albert.) Park he is again saddened by "the I usual statue of the Qceen," while a i few good English marble statues attempt in vain to obliterate the ghastly impressions made by a monument to a warrior of the B >er War, "who seems so deadly tired that one can well understand why he casts j such longing eyes on the seat in front of him." Looking back mentally over the four cities, Dr. Herz j admits that, "though scarcely over fifty years old, they can yet stand comparison with European cities as i far as sanitary arrangements, water supply, canalisation, lighting, mc- j dium of traffic, fire brigades, etc., ! are concerned. But none is beauti- I ful." And when this long-suffering and much-forgiving traveller sums up the New Zeajandsr in his final chapter, he writes hip a "shocking Philistine and Boeotian in matters of Art." Music, pictures, the drama, sculpture, architecture, furniture, clothes—nothing is right. Of course, there is a great deal of truth in the genial doctor's; indict- j ; ment. But is New Zealand singular | in its Philistinism ? We pick up last j month's New York Outlook and read: "European criticism in the i past has said, with some justice, that the people of the United States I have been so engrossed in chasing the almighty dollar that they ha"°. not had time to observe some of the common decencies, to say nothing of the uncommon beauties, of life. ' Wc happen across the November Contemporary, and find Mr. Henry Holi- j day bewailing that "beauty has 1 practically ceased to form a natural part of the daily life among civil- ■ ised nations." Mr. Holiday is an j extremist. He sees in'men's dress,! "since the death of Beauty," no- \ thing but "shapeless bundles of j black or grey tubes, without ,a glim- !■ mering of taste," and he thinks the ; whole trouble is due to the habit of ; buying cheap and selling dear, j Which brings us back to the American and the almighty dollar, and] reminds us that Dr. Herz offers the j familiar explanation of tha New Zca-1 lander's want of artistic "soul"— j that the stress of the pioneering j days forced the people to concen-: trate their minds upon hard work and strictly useful results. ' The j theory is not wholly false, for n man will not buy a picture until he has a house over his head, nor will_ he think of carving statues if he is very much taken up with shearing sheep. Yet there have been poor and laborious peoples whose huts and utensils and clothes had an artistic comeliness. The question is much t.oo great for the present occasion. By way of remedy for our Philistinism, Dr. Herz suggests that each city should have, instead of a Mayor, a sort of civic commissioner or Burgomaster, elected on j the German plan for twelve years orv for life, to replan and beautify the' city, "discover and gather the men of culturo and education around • him, institute lectures and concerts, sweep out the present galieries and refill them"—and, wc presume, to make the young women dress elegantly, instead of fiuffily. Now, most of our people believe in a rational policy of town planning, and know that the beautification of a city cannot be left altogether to private enterprise, and they are aware that the "commission" system of municipal control has done wonders in America, but wo do not think they would like the idea of a General Dictator of Taste and Culture. Such an officer might, if nominated by Dr. Herz, make Wellington or Dunedin a much nicer city—for Dr. Herz. But, if wo Philistines are to get any culture of our own —culture in the real sense, a ploughingup, or deep cultivation of the mind —we must have liberty enough to learn by the old-fashioned method of making mistakes.