ART AND FORMULA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 261, 23 June 1944, Page 10

ART AND FORMULA

With My Daughter To The Gallery

(Written for "The Listener" by

VERDANT

GREEN

| exhibition of the Wellington Society of Arts, if you are so interested. What will Posterity say of these pictures? Ri Do not look so far ahead, my child. Posterity is a most exacting critic. You insist? Most people do not. They like pretty pictures and are content. They rarely ask questions. Very well. Quite candidly I think Posterity will have forgotten all but very few of these pictures. Maybe the Wellington artists have not sent Cet my child, let us to the

| forward their best work. I do not know, but there is little here which stimulates the observer. Only rarely is there a feeling of adven--ture in paint; there is too much of formula — of the repetition of former years. Perhaps it is that miost of our artists have evolved a formula which sells, and they are too timid to depart from that formula — particularly if it is a pretty one. My reasons? Let us examine some of the paintings. Posterity Will Remember Him The work of T. A. McCormack is something that Posterity will remember -high on its list. See how beautifully he has captured the very essence and spirit of the New Zealand scene. His treatment belongs to no’ school but his own. His work shows the delicacy of subtle colour combined with an

amazing strength which few artists ever achieve. He retains only the essentials of a composition. By discarding unnecessary detail he has retained only the vital elements of

a picture. Examine for a moment the perfection of his colour washes and the mastery of his brush-work. This is work which will live; this is the New Zealand scene. W. A. Sutton? I do not know his work, If he is young and concentrates only on sales, he may become a formula. His landscapes escape the commonplace, but he might pay more attention to balance in his compositions. This portrait of his father shows much promise -even to the braces-but I doubt that it should hang in a permanent collection. The colour is good, though I would have preferred a less monotonous background. Worrying Backgrounds The backgrounds of most of the portraits worry me. Ivy Fife’s portrait of "Michael" is. an interesting piece of work, but the background is too deliber- | ately cut into light and dark planes. — Most of the portraits lack vitality. It seems that our artists will treat broadly everything except the face of their sitters. When they paint faces there is q tendency to become messy and fiddling. Sydney Thompson made his name in France and developed his colour themes

there. It is rather a pity he brought that same palette to New Zealand. His work has vigour and vitality, but he has not yet captured the New Zealand scene and stamped it with his individuality. The majesty of mountains is subdued to mediocrity on canvas, even by his broad brush. "Sheds, Wellington Harbour" is a glimpse of him at his best. Perhaps it is that he is happiest with sea and boats and fishermen, as he was at Concarneau. You like Angus Gray’s work? You are right, Those six little studies of

Noumea are fresh and stimulating. I like his clear colour and his sense of design. Posterity may become quite interested in his future work. Nelson landscape seems to have become a kind of painter’s Mecca, composed of slender poplars, lumpy willows and blue hills. Among the oils you will see it at its best as interpreted by Cedric Savage, who has fortunately forsaken his dreaming blue and gold Australian period. Even now he is still searching -a good sign that he is not becoming a formula. His "Poplar Tree" falls easily into first place, though his "Late Afternoon" is good, though spoiled, I think, by unhappy composition. Nugent Welch handles his water colour skilfully, and composes his pictures so easily that they become decorative without telling us very much. Yes, they would look quite attractive on the pale cream or grey walls of a hundred drawing rooms. The freedom with which he treats the poplars of Nelson and the manuka of the Wellington hills is quite lost in his studies of still life, which are tight and a trifle fussy. (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) The Kellys, Cecil and Elizabeth, seem to work with the same colour values, and both achieve a decorative effect which has charm but little strength. I find them soothing, but I am not stimulated. And this same criticism may be applied to this year’s paintings of Archibald Nicoll. I am lulled into a sense of security and comfort by his dteamy colour, but irked in some instances by his choice of subject. Unfortunately, he has not exhibited any portraits at this exhibition. A Pleasant Jolt S. B. Maclennan gives me a pleasant jolt, but I hope he does not become too stylised. There is vigour here, where everything is reduced to deliberate design. "Summer Afternoon" loses a little by its too-obvious colour effect. I would ask you to take a second look at Olivia Spencer Bower’s "Green and Gold." It departs from the formula with delicate success. Basil Honour tells us nothing new. Like the conscientious workman, he produces the same kind of picture by the same kind of formula-a formula, however, which finds favour with the public. Some of the artists are still obviously searching and seeking-Lois White, for example. R. J. Waghorn’s lucid watercolours have quality. Joan Edgar has successfully developed design from her studies of birds. I am disappointed that Esther Hope has forsaken her vigorous and interesting watercolour for such a dull and opaque medium as tempera. By doing so she has lost her strength. Oh! The Flower Studies ‘But oh! the flower studies! We have seen them so often in the past, and I

suppose we shall see them for years to come. Still life can be so very lovely but not the still life as we see it heretight little watercolours over: which artists have devoted hours of time laboriously fiddling with every leaf and petal. Nature does it. so much better, my child. I hope, if you attempt such studies, as you must, that you will concentrate on design and simplicity; that you will suggest form and do it with freedom; that you will leave most of

the detail to the seedsmen and their catalogues. , We haven’t much time to spend on the drawings and the prints, but I should like you to look at George Woods’s "Nude," uncomfortable though she is, lying outstretched on ‘something which is not suggested. Weight cannot be supported by air. And I should like to know who "Barc" is. His wash drawing, "The Best People," has a freedom much to be admired.