“THE SPOTLIGHT”

Putaruru Press, Volume II, Issue 50, 2 October 1924, Page 3

“THE SPOTLIGHT”

A MUMMER’S MURMUR. It is not often that an actor talks like a clergyman although sometimes a clergyman speaks like an actor. A case in point is that of Mr. Bransby Williams, the famous English character impersonator, who recently spoke in Auckland concerning what is read by “ the young person ” of to-day. Mr. Williams deplored the prevalence of “ the sex novel ” with its erotic tendencies and its perverted views of life. That, however, was the literary pabulum that was being inwardly digested by the youth of today. The works of Scott, Dickens, Thackeray and other great masters were rarely asked for and still more rarely read. A PASSING PHASE. In “ Spot’s ” opinion this is only a passing phase, however, and will pass. Like a great many other conditions existing to-day 'it is a product of the war’s aftermath. The great conflict brought about a mental reaction which has been evidenced in many ways. There is not a branch of art, hardly, in which this aspect has not presented itself. Sensation, rather than solidity, is the proclivity of the period. It is a syncopated age when everything must be short and spicy, and this phase (let us hope, a passing phase) has affected almost all branches of art. Literature has been no exception. So we find to-day the book shops beset with alleged magazines of the snappy story variety, each one carrying on its cover the perennial decollete girl; infested with novels that a year or two ago no one would care " to leave about the house.” ART AND BUTTERFAT. The whole trouble is that the world is in a stage of reconstruction, and reconstruction always means more or less materialism. Art is for the time being relegated to a back seat, but still art exists and will exists, for “ A person who says there is no place for art in human life is an animal —an alimentary canal, capable only of consuming food,” declared Mr. A. J. C. Fisher, the newlyappointed director of the Auckland School of Art, at a social gathering the other evening. “ I would divest such a person of everything beautiful —of his house, his clothes and his body as well, for a person who expresses those views is not fit to own them. I would impress upon all that art is of vital importance. No man can do anything unless he Has material to handle and unless he is of a country which recognises that culture is worth while. And I would say, further, that culture and art are not to be reckoned by one’s bank account or butterfat.”

And to those sentiments, “ Spot ” takes off his hat and says, “ Hear, hear.”