"ART IS NEVER EASY"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 820, 15 April 1955, Page 5

"ART IS NEVER EASY"

Sir,-Thank you for the attention paid to the above matter in your editorial: a few points of difference might yet be worth stressing. I am by now thoroughly convinced that the artist is, if he’s worth his salt, quite capable of looking after himself. Your comments on that were, for me, truisms, but I don’t find that they lead to conclusions quite as heartening as you find. We are, in fact, talking about different things-for in accepting the fact that art is never easy, I’m not suggesting, on this occasion, that the artist’s way should be made so. I am speaking out of turn in a democracy, voicing the unpopular belief that the public is never right (in time). I'm suggesting that it’s becoming too fashionable to discuss "trends in New Zealand art," the "state of New Zealand painting, poetry, etc.,’ without having, first of all, found out what it is. (If there is any.) We are surely lacking in the kind of criticism-perhaps I

should say expressed aesthetics-which would enable us to define a work as a sample of New Zealand art. Mr. MceCormick hits this problem squarely in his book on Frances Hodgkins when he admits that of course he’s interested in her because she’s farnous. But how many others are that honest? I am not reassured that things are as well as they may be, culturally. There were fewer literary works published here last year than there have been for many years previously-and this despite a Literary Fund. It is not accounted for by dearth of material, as writers and publishers could testify. And then there is the complete absence of a factor which, if any may, could go a long way to helping establish and define some sort of "New Zealand’ tag to writing. I mean, the official commissioning of works to mark State occasions. In the hey-day of the poets of the thirties. commissions and prizes for art were known--and some of the best work written here was brought into being-or at least public notice, by the Centennial Exhibition. Were not the celebration of 100 years of Parliament in New Zealand, or the Queen’s visit, worth attempting, historically to memorialise officially through the arts? I can’t see progress, or cause for complacency here. Finally, may I comment, in passing, on the five "types" of artist you analyse. As generalisations, these may, if they’re popular conceptions, explain some of the neglect, Let’s hope they’re not, anyway, specific portraits. The danger in them is that they present a way of looking at artists-but no way at all of approaching art. (Milton may rate no less as poet because, as man, he beat his wife.) Too often, our art is approached, reviewed, and seen, in terms of its "personalities.". And this too stands. ultimately, in the way of discovery.

LOUIS

JOHNSON

(Wellington).