Correspondence re Soldiers' Memorials

Progress, Volume XIV, Issue 1, 1 September 1918, Page 314

Correspondence re Soldiers' Memorials

The following correspondence appeared in the “Southland Times” recently, and we commend it to our readers for perusal:— To the Editor. Sir, —Some months ago now your paper contained one morning an account of a statue which it was proposed to erect at Edendale ns a memorial to the fallen soldiers of that district, ■ Your reporter explained that this statue was the work of a local monumental artist, and that a novel feature of the production was that it was made of “concrete.” 1 was sufficiently interested to go and see this statue. I am not an artist, nor an architect, and I have no wish to depreciate the achievement of the sculptor who no doubt succeeded wonderfully well in his strange task, but I do think that some protest should be raised against the overwhelming indifference, or is it ignorance, of a community which allows such a caricature of all that is meant by sculpture to be put in a place of honour and prominence in the name of patriotism. I believe a similar monstrosity is to be erected at Woodlands, and certainly the pedestal is already underway. I sincerely hope they will stop short of the “concrete hero” of the Edendale monument.

It is not to be expected, perhaps, that the people in the country districts of New Zealand should have any idea of art' or of artists, but surely the farmers of Woodlands who are so generously defraying the expenses of the erection might well have sought advice from someone who at least would have saved them perpetrating a horror which in any country with pretensions to the slightest knowledge of what sculpture is would have made them the laughing stock of the whole community.

I am not a New Zealander, but I blush for it when I think that it is probably the only part of the British Empire

where the project of erecting “concrete” statues to its fallen soldiers should pass without a word of censure, let alone the derision, it deserves. Did it not,betray a depth of ignorance on the part of the community which says little for its education and less for its sense of the beautiful; the whole business is too ridiculous for serious notice. However; it is not only the people of Woodlands who apparently know, no better, but every member of the community who knows what art means will be to blame if they allow these preposterous figures to mar the countryside and hold up the New Zealand bumpkin as of all bumpkins the most brainless. —I am, etc., ASHAMED OF SOUTHLAND. * * * « Sir, —It is to be hoped that the timely and emphatic protest contained in the let't'er published in your columns this morning will have some chastening effect upon the community. To any one who knows anything of art and sculpture, and who lids seen the “concrete soldier” of Edendale, it cannot but appear appalling and well-nigh incredible that another such monstrosity should be contemplated as a soldiers’ memorial in Southland, : Concrete bridges, concrete ships, concrete pill-boxes even, but why! oh! why a concrete soldiers’ memorial? Is the value of such a memorial to consist in its bulk, in the number of tons of concrete it contains, rather than in its beauty, its appropriateness, its worthiness of its object? £2OO worth of concrete! Surely it would have been wiser to offer some part of the sum so generously subscribed by the Woodlands farmers for a prize for the best design for a memorial to be executed in something more appropriate than concrete, a design produced by some one of knowledge, training and experience who has seen something of truly artistic work elsewhere. Beauty and art are not mere frills and furbelows: to regard them as such is the mark of ignorance and unenlightenment. They possess an influence of the greatest value and importance that tends to higher ideals and a keener appreciation of the finer things of life. With regret it is to be admitted that there is little in Invercargill to train the eye or the artistic appreciation. What beautiful buildings, what pictures, what statues have we in our city? I venture to say that there is not more than one building—and that is not First Church— -with any claims to architectural beauty, and the only figure to give satisfaction to the eye was the bronze figure of Athene above the Athenaeum. Yet this last was coated with white paint when the Council had that building painted last year! Think of it! Athene in a coat of white paint! A soldiers’ memorial done in concrete! One can imagine some antiquarian a few centuries hence studying these huge blocks of concrete, weathered by time, in a mystified attempt to discover in honour of what heathen deity they had been erected by the early barbarian inhabitants of the district. A thing of beauty is a joy for ever. Let us strive a little after the beautiful: let our memorials be worthy of the deeds of valour and sacrifice they commemorate, and such as will . awaken feelings of pride not only in our own hearts but in the hearts of future generations.— am, etc., ANTI-CONCRETE.