THE JOLT OF SOMETHING NEW William Dobell Defends Himself

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 250, 6 April 1944, Page 10

THE JOLT OF SOMETHING NEW

William Dobell Defends Himself

‘AN issue of the "ABC Weekly" recently to hand, contains William Dobell’s broadcast reply to those who complained of his prize-winning portrait of Joshua Smith,

THINK you will forgive me if I have a few words to say following all the criticism of my portrait of Joshua Smith. You may have seen photographs of it in the papers, with comments from people who saw it in the galleryeven from some people who had been picked up in the streets and asked their opinion of the portrait when they had seen only the reproduction in the daily papers. It was unfair to ask people to judge the portrait when they had seen only photographs of it. Paintings have to be photographed with extreme care by people who know a lot about this particular technique. It is criminal to attempt to get true values and qualities on newsprint with a photograph taken by flashlight. I would be praising these particular reproductions if I said they were bad. I think there has been very little informed criticism of the picture. The

comments obviously came from an average slice of the public; the type of man that Samuel Butler means when he says: "He does not interest himself in arts, or science, or politics, but he sets his back up with some consonance if any of them show any development unfamiliar to himself.’ That is exactly what happened with my picture. It was the jolt of something new which is immediately resented by most people. The Right to Freedom The people who criticised it didn’t wait to find out what I was trying to do when I painted the picture; they just noticed at first glance that it differed from an actual photograph of Joshua Smith, and they objected. People of this type expect a portrait to be simply a coloured photograph; they would restrict the artist to painting things just as they expect them to appear. Like all artists I claim the right to paint things in my own way. If I didn’t, I should be doing

things that have been done over and over before, and the work would lack interest. (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous pege) You might say that I am trying to create something instead of copying something, when I set out to paint a portrait. To me, a sincere artist is not one who makes a faithful attempt to put on canvas what is in front of him, but one who tries to create something which is a living thing in itself, regardless of its subject. Another peculiar thing said about the picture was that it was "typical of degenerate modern art." I don’t know what this means. in fact, I’m not interested in the word "modern’-lI think it’s badly used in cases like this. To me, art is a continuous development, and the best way to learn is to go back and learn from the big men of the past. My own particular love has always been Rembrandt, but I have learnt a jot from such men as Goya and Tintoretto. Coming nearer to the present day, Renoir and Ingres have taught me much. Throughout my student days in London I learnt to admire the thoroughness of Van Gogh. I have been trying to develop a style of my own derived from the Old Masters. The leaders of the so-called "modern" movements have done the samealthough they have developed in different directions. Picasso is an example. He is a splendid classic draftsman, and he would be the first to admit his debt to the past. I think that art has a good future in Australia. There is very good material among the students and they are delving more than ever before into the real history of art. They are more conscious than ever of the necessity for good draftsmanship. Promising Students As well as promising students, we have some younger artists who are already well established. They not only have something to say, but they are saying it with considerable technical ability. Among them are Russell Drysdale, James Gleason, Donald Friend, Jean Bellette, Eric Wilson, and my friend Joshua Smith, to name only a few. Their work varies greatly, but they are all sincere artists. However, we suffer from the lack of really informed art criticism in Australia. No one is able to take up criticism as a profession, and few of the newspaper critics have made a deep study of the subject. Some of them seem interested only in the artists who flourished in Australia between about 1880 and 1930, and know very little of what has happened overseas. Of course, we have had great artists in Australia. My own favourite is Charles Conder, who attracted little attention here but was very highly thought of in England and on the Continent. He was not born in Australia, but he spent a number of years painting here. I saw a number of beautiful pictures by him in Europe. The Sydney Gallery has a fine example of his work, "The Departure of S.S. Orient." I should say that the best of the others so far have been Sir Arthur Streeton, Elioth Gruner, Tom Roberts, and that wonderful technician G. W. Lambert. Scope for Mural Decoration I have been asked to give my opinion of the various Australian Art Galleries. I can only repeat what is a well-known (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) fact: that the Melbourne Gallery has the best collection, because of the Felton Bequest. I think the two best pictures there are Van Eyck’s Virgin and Child and The Beautiful Portrait by Goya, Artists should play a large part in the rebuilding and remodelling of cities after the war; not so much here, perhaps, but certainly in Europe. In Australia there is considerable scope for mural decoration. Recently I dined at the restaurant which contains Elaine Haxton’s murals, which recently won the Sir John Sulman Prize, They added greatly to the pleasure of the meal..I look forward to the time when not only our restaurants but also many of the public buildings will be decorated. But the artist will never be properly recognised in Australia until the public attitude to art is changed. There are some people who are prepared to buy pictures and enjoy them, thus helping artists to live; but many people know nothing about painting. They object strongly when a painter does something new, and offends their idea of how it ought to be done, but they never take a genuine interest in pictures,