MODERN ART
Sir,-Your correspendent "Brown Sable" has brought a rather interest.ng problem to light. He deplores the freedom exercised by our contemporary "Moderns" in the handiing of both their subjects and their media, However, the obvious weakness in his argument struck me rather forcibly in his admiss on that "our public may lack appreciation in the finer points (of modern art) and its approach to art appreciation." May I heartily endorse ths, but add that the buying public not only lack knowledge of the finer points of contemporary painting but also of the fundamentals as well. In fact their innocence is so great as to confine their understanding and appreciation even of the old masters to a few famous names. This statement is rather bald, but I doubt very much that it could be proved incorrect. Modern art is not the product of a few addle-pated high-brows; it is the inevitable advancement of culture under the stimulus of rapidly changing social conditions. Art is indissolubly bound up with life, hence it must interpret the spirit of the age in which it is practised. Picasso’s "Portrait of Henry Kahnwe.ler’ would have been impossible without the invention of the motor car or the aeroplane.
True originality is a rarity; it only comes with superlative genius. But it is imposs ble to expect a sane contemporary practitioner to grind on the worn out barrel organ of tradition to softsoap public taste. If "Brown Sable" dislikes his "subjects stripped to the bare bones" he forgets that the bones are far more significant than the flesh which surrounds them. The old Keats an cry of "truth is beauty" is not outdated; only the interpretation has undergone an evolution. The public must adjust themselves to the new standards, or shali we say values, which the modern movement has inaugurated. These changing values — have been moving a little too swiftly during the last hundred years for the public to catch up in ther appreciation. Hence the gulf that exists to-day. The fault again lies with the conservatism of the inadequate art education in most of our institutions.
"ARTIST SPECTATOR"
(Nelson).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 399, 14 February 1947, Page 19
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353MODERN ART New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 399, 14 February 1947, Page 19
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