"EYES OF THE PIG"
Sir-1I really must quatrel with Mr. Maslen’s attempt to create a half-way house between art and imitation. Any
work of art has its own sphere of reference, its own universe of discourse, and is its own justification. It need have no recourse to reality whatsoever, except, perhaps, for its materia prima. Mr. Maslen suggests that "the writer’s imagination would be more likely to be helped .... by the sight of a pig-hunt," and concludes "Imagination is not primarily the quality of picturing vividly things the artist has not seen before." What nonsense! Imagination is the tool of the artist. With regard to the first statement, I would hold that it needs no assistance at all from reality. With regard to the second, I can only ask where, if not with the imagination, can the writer possibly imagine things he has not seen before? I am afraid that your correspondent’s construction will not stand up. What he proposes is a mixture of art and imitation, a mixture which would embody the weaker qualities of each, and which would result in a degraded and hybrid form of artistic expression.
PETER CAPE
(Auckland),
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19491104.2.12.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 541, 4 November 1949, Page 5
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193"EYES OF THE PIG" New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 541, 4 November 1949, Page 5
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