Art and Conscience

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 313, 22 June 1945, Page 8

Art and Conscience

FOUND Norman Corwin, an American radio-dramatist, interesting in the "America Talks to New Zealand" series, heard recently from 3YA. He chose-one feels it somehow inevitable — to talk about the secial function of Art and delivered an impassioned and impressive speech on the artist as the voice of the

public’s conscience. I could not help remembering all the same that there have been a distressing number of great artists whose love of freedom was not their strongest motive force. Most Renaissance Italians, many seventeenth century Frenchmen-without coming any nearer home-put up with despotic rule successfully and even profitably. The antiFascist services of most modern artists -which heaven forbid that we should underrate — were given because they sensed that Fascism threatened all civilised values simultaneously and directly. Had it: aimed only at political liberty and left the arts alone, even if only for a time, we might have been less well served. Finally, must we always stress the defensive proficiency of the sentinel? That the whole of our energies yesterday and to-day have had to be used in saving ourselves is surely our misfortune rather than the necessary basis of all our theories.