HENRY MOORE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 902, 16 November 1956, Page 5

HENRY MOORE

Sir,-Auckland’s reaction to Moore is surely eructation, not eruption, let us not confuse upset tummy with heroics. Scarcely weaned on a classical tradition in sculpture, viewers are swallowing whether they like it or not the strong meat of Europe’s great innovator, It all sounds very much like gunfire-could it be mental and emotional indigestion? Seriously form-conscious when it comes to horse-flesh, a nicely-filled spinnaker and certain landscapes, we are sometimes apt to confuse that which gives us aesthetic and other pleasure with art itself-screen Venus Marilyn Monroe may be a "thing of beauty" for millions, but she is not more than a work of art than a piece of cold pork, nor even can she ever attain the "joy foreverdom" of the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Europe with its out-of-door sculpture -both traditional and modern-gets a reasonable start, but what have we got apart from the "wax-works" of what the 19th century considered classical sculpture? In spite of this, last year’s exhibition of abstract sculpture in Auckland brought big crowds, yet surprisingly little adverse criticism, possibly because many Auckland homes and interiors reflect the language of the modern eculptor and painter-Plato’s "beauty of geometric forms in perfect balance’’-for this reason wouldn’t we view Gabo and Pevsner with less tummy rumbling? Why are the many who appreciate abstract sculptural forms in everyday

life bewildered by or -even hostile to Moore’s work? This may be due to his startlingly original amalgam of organic, as well as abstract, forms, including bone shapes, muscle structure, landscape and water-worn rocks, which are expressed and unified in the media of wood, stone, bronze or concrete. "There’s a power of explaining to be done." Well, let us have the bismuth in terms of illustrated lectures, and guide lecture tours of the exhibition; especially so since many artists and critics consider Moore’s sculpture to be as valid and unique, in its own field, as Einstein’s contribution to physics.

J. E.

BROWN

(Auckland),