HENRY MOORE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 898, 19 October 1956, Page 5

HENRY MOORE

Sir,-Difficult as it may be to tie one’s remarks down to specific works in. introducing an exhibition of sculpture, a failure to do so leaves the reader fioundering lest to any counter-criticism the critic should reply: ". . . That is not what I meant at all./That is not it, at all." I should like to know, for example, just what works by Moore illustrate the "generalised ‘poetic’" sculpturally weak quality which prevents his "work from containing . . . intense concentrations of meaning." Should Mr, Fairburn think that this failure is evident in -the "Draped Figure Reclining’ (page 9, Listener, October 5), or the figures reproduced on the cover, one might fruitfully have thought over or discussed the matter. It is a mistake to consider that a failure in sculpture springs directly from, say, "nature romanticism": the slip is nearer, between that moment in which the artist feels the impact of the natural world and that in which he puts it into terms suitable to his chosen material. A contrast between: moments in the work of Turner and Constable might well be explored here as they were both nature lovers, The idea that the total subject is at fault is the very one which often drives

the artist out into a formal limbo where he is almost completely severed from the -understanding of the layman. ; Confined as he then is to a mere "verbal" play of textures and shapes, he resembles the poet in love with words but with nothing to say. Surely, too, my own attitude here is more consonant with Mr. Fairburn’s later statement that the root of what he calls decadence "lies: in isolating the aesthetic, removing it from its necessary and traditional involvement with other modes of experience." For my part I like the two works I have cited. Is it straining legitimate symbolism to see in "Family Group" the idea of the ordinary family set there now as everlasting as the hills? This is a new slant on "The British Working Man," or suburban life, and a much more memorable one than might be achieved by a soft cliche of Mum and Dad and little Billy replete with tie, napkin, and the latest fashion in dresses, Look at the ungainly unidealised feet, the unidealised bulk and then note how the simple stone makes these things good, lifts them from the commonplace; and then ask if the Colossi of King Rameses is more than the pride of kings heightened to an unearthly degree. To what degree Moore’s work approaches the greatness of Egyptian sculpture it is difficult to say. The words classic and romantic are snares. For one thing, it is pcssible to have work of a romantic intention classically executed, and it is within the terms of this relationship that I should have thought Moore’s best work falls. | I consider that in such matters even Mr. Moore might not agree, but also that somewhere, sometime, those interested must say concrete things about what they feel in regard to specific works if they are not going to further confuse those people who wonder if all modern work and discussion about it hides a horrible vacuum.

JOHN

SUMMERS

(Christchurch)