Realism and Quietism
At the not very convenient hour of 6.15 p.m., I listened recently to the first of a fortnightly series of BBC talks
on the present condition of the arts in Britain. The speaker, Miss C. V. Wedgwood, is one of the best contemporary historians, and it will be interesting to see if she cares to challenge renewal of battles long ago by including history emnong the arts she discusses. On this occasion, however, she gave a general
survey of the field. Her tone was cheeringly yoptimistic, for she detects a new promise and an achieved maturity, which is definitely the product of the war years; a diagnosis especially interesting in New Zealand, mucn of whose iniellectual life is still stuck in pre-war avenues. The main tendencies, she said, were a wartime realism, as of certain painters who were engaged in translating and transmuting war and blitz experience and effect into the terms of art; a quietism and search for the restful, which was certainly not escapism in the ordinary sense; and a renewed interest in the macabre and romantic, with a strong tinge of the supernatural, which nevertheiess was not morbidity, but a desire to tackle and accept the uncomfortable and inexplicable.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 305, 27 April 1945, Page 13
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205Realism and Quietism New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 305, 27 April 1945, Page 13
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