REGIONAL CULTURE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 522, 24 June 1949, Page 15

REGIONAL CULTURE

ART IN SCOTLAND. By Ian Finlay, Geolfrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press. Price, 15/-. SINCE 1939. By Arnold L. Haskell, Dilys » Rollo Myers, Robin Ironside. House. Price 12/6. —

(Reviewed by

A. R. D.

Fairburn

AN FINLAY is a regionalist. He believes in Scotland, and in the power of its people to create a significant art that reflects the life of their community. As a short history of Scottish art and culture his book deserves wide popularity. But it is more than that. Finlay contends at one point that the Scots are too much inclined to hide their art under a bushel. If he were satisfied with this as an explanation of why Scotland has been obscured his argument would lapse for want of a

seconder, But he is much more realistic. His main contention, to which he devotes a great deal of time, is the more convincing one that Scotland has been dominated by London. This book has, I think, a special importance for New Zealanders, for it makes a powerful appeal against cosmopolitanism in art and letters, in favour of local and re-

gional developments. Some of the things Finlay has to say are so good that I must be forgiven for quoting at length. "The decay of Highland culture," he says, "took the form of a complete collapse when social and economic neglect of that region followed the ’Forty-five. And the harm has net yet ended. The weakened state of her culture through long dependence on outside support has laid Scotland wide open to the operation of that disastrous Gresham’s Law whereby all the English-speaking peoples are conforming rapidly to tastes current in the least discriminating parts of the United States," With fashionable writers flocking to Hollywood, that, I feel, is right on the nail. It reminds me of something the American critic, Edmund Wilson, has just written about the class that is coming into power in Britain: "Certainly this new lower middle class, which may be destined to absorb the others, supplies an eager and growing market for the worst-in movies, radio and journal-ism-that the United States have to send them. Our Hollywood stars are already their stars, our best-sellers their best-sellers, To an American, these signs of Americanisation seem mostly stale and depressing. The British feed themselves on our banality without catching our excitement and gusto. Many of tham now chew gum." To return to Finlay: "Misuse of power," he continues, "is making a cultural dustbowl of the world. The values of life, like honey in the comb, can only be retained if life retains ‘its infinite complexity. Michael Ayrton has

written that it is not by fostering a ‘Pan-European’ art that the European tradition will be continued, but by encouraging individual cultures and artists in each country. Scotland’s contribution to the arts may be fragmentary, and, in sum, considerable, It appears to me, however, to be a contribution of some small value to-day. Dustbowls are symptomatic of this age. They\ indicate a devotion to purely mechanical exploitation of our resources, to the methods of the laboratary, to the urban ideal, and they are a writing on the wall which needs no Daniel to make its meaning clear. They are a warning to a civilisation which denies God as manifested in the mystery of organic growth. The ‘irreligion’ which has brought about the dustbowls extends everywhere, even to the arts."

Finlay goes on to attack certain forms of "dehydrated art" that havé gained great international prestige. Again, the concluding paragraph of the book cannot fail to evoke some response in the mind of the New Zealander: "There is a doctrine, insidiously growing, that in uni.formity rather than in mere unity lies strength. The strength of. Britain

in the past has lain in the fact that she is not one nation, but four. From those four nations a diversity of genius has come to feed the Commonwealth in time of need, and it seems the plain duty of each of the four to cherish and foster this diversity, not least in the arts." Y own impulse is to agree warmly with the attitude adopted by Fin-lay-which is elaborated in other parts of the book; All my instincts lead me to reject the cosmopolitan work of art, however sophisticated it may be, as false and unreal. I do not doubt that later generations will reckon a great deal of our most fashionable art and literature to be as hollow as a pumpkin. But the matter, one must admit, is more complicated than might be inferred from Finlay’s account of it. In the first place, there -are powerful forces working towards ‘the establishment of a world state; and some highly responsible critics have gone so far as to assure us that in any possible future we may look forward to there will be no place for minority or regional cultures. They are, of course, assuming two things: first, that the pooling of power in a world state is the only alternative to disaster; and secondly, that political and economic patterns determine cultural patterns. The first may well. be true, if unpalatable. What about the second? It certainly seems to be the case that when a concentration of economic and political power occurs, a cultural powercentre is always established in association with it. This is partly because patronage and the means of production (continued on next page) i

REGIONAL CULTURE

(continued from previous \ page) (publishing facilities and so on) are naturally more available in, say, London than in Wellington; and partly because a large community of artists and writers is formed, who live close together, go to the same parties, and conveniently exploit the gang principle when necessary. (There is also an aura of dignity and importance about everything that springs from the power-centre, or ‘receives its approval.) I think it is little realised by the suburban intelligentsia just how much ganging-up there is among‘ writers and artists, and their ancillaries, the publishers, reviewers, dealers and critics, in such places as London, Paris and New York; and to what extent these goings-on help to. determine the patterns of fashionable culture. Art and letters imply a business,

a means of livelihood, a career. No London coterie is going to "take up" Scottish poets, or Australian novelists, or New Zealand painters, except when such a policy will serve its own, purposes. And that, of course, can happen. The connection between art and literature | and economic power, like the other "facts of life," is not discussed in polite society. But it is neither accidental nor unimportant. And, if it comes to the point, thefe is nothing particularly sinister | about it. The domination

| of London is something that is more or less\natural and inevitable, in the circumstances, There is no use our beating our breasts about it. The important thing is for us to objectify it in our minds, and get things straightened out. N times of decadence (such as the present), when there is something like a state of cultural bankruptcy, we find the impresarios of culture abandoning the discredited tribal magic, and pursuing the exotic in its various forms. Continental fashions, primitivism, Oriental influences, "proletarian" and dialect writing, political nonconformism and other such things are "taken up" in desperation. Now the value of all- such things is largely dependent on the relationship they maintain with their time and place of origin-whether it be China, the bottom of a coal-mine, or a Scottish rural district. When a cosmopolitan clique adopts them, it merely assumes a virtue: it appears to be "getting back to reality," and so forth. Actually, all it is doing is to spread dilettantism, and make it appear to have substance. This sort of thing has been a major industry in Bloomsbury for 25 years. Bankrupt or solvent, the intellectuals continue to dictate to the provinces and colonies so long as the power-centre in which they work maintains its political and economic grip. Cultural erosion may be taking place, decadence may be spreading like mould through a case of fruit, but authority, in matters relating to art and letters, still resides at the

centre, an epiphyte clinging to the old oak tree. The path to success and reputation, for a Scottish, New Zealand or Australian writer or painter, still lies through the doorway of the London publishing house or gallery. Just as the intransigent Mahrattas of the 18th Century gave place to the cricket-playing Etonian rajahs of more recent times, so we find the late C. F. Goldie’s Maori portraits being "taken up" in London -partly because they conform to the standards of one of the powerful cliques, and partly because their "quaintness" and exotic interest help to relieve the boredom. And, in a different context, we find grimy pit-novelists from Wales being "taken up" by the arum-lilies. of Bloomsbury. Ian Finlay would no doubt apply the same judgment to Barrie and others of his countrymen who have gone to London and exploited canny Scottishness. The process works at all levels, The only instance in which it has not im-

plied domination, I think, is in the case of the Irish-an unco-operative lot, whose destiny it is to provide the exception to every rule, I am not suggesting, of course, that cross-fertilisation is a bad thing in the arts. External strains enrich and give strength. But a stud is one thing, and a zoo is another. In spite of Finlay’s eloquence, and his optimism, then, the prospects for the growth or restoration of regional culture, in Scotland or in New Zealand, seem to me at the moment to be dim. But the situation is so confused, and we have so little notion of what changes are ahead of us, that it would be foolish to take anything for granted. Ars longa, vita brevis. (Or you can take it the other way round and get even more consolation from it, perhaps.) HE four essays in Since 1939 do little to relieve my suspicion that Britain is passing through a period of interesting, and quite charming, decadence. Robin Jronside provides a_ satisfactory survey of English painting during that period. There is no denying the attractiveness, and sometimes the imaginative force, of the artists he illustrates. How necessary was the reaction away from both the academic and the abstract! And how refreshing are these works, after one has been looking at some of the 19th Century relics that meke morgues of our public galleries! (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) With English painters giving their imagination free rein once again, it is difficult to tepress a cheer. Yet where is this neo-romanticism tending? Does it herald a future in which the artist will live in a fully-urbanised, denatured, largely standardised world-where the only "region" he will have left from which to draw his psychic power will be the subjective world of childhood memories and adult fantasies? Is Western man perhaps undergoing a major mutation? There are no teady answers to such questions. In the chapters on Ballet, Music and Films, by Arnold Haskell, Dilys Powell and Rollo Myers respectively, the writing is without distinction, but a useful array of facts is presented. They strengthen the impression that many of the creative artists in Britain at the present time are more interested in toffee and nougat than in bread. But it would be quite unfair to apply this generalisation blanket-fashion.