The Queen Mary Giggles From Stem To Stern

Radio Record, 5 June 1936, Page 12

The Queen Mary Giggles

From Stem To Stern

"Disfigured With — Busin essman: "Art’’ ; UNDREDS of ‘thousands of British ears # throughout the world were cocked to radio loud-speakers on Wednesday and Thursday last week as the B.B.C., in its various Empire transmissions, broadcast commentaries of the beginning of the maiden’ voyage of the great liner, Queen Mary. As many British hearts swelled with pride, the New Zealand rebroadcast of Daventry’s transmission gave Dominion listeners the thrill of a well-or description of the goings on aboard a ship which most have come to consider the acme of grace and beauty, not only from the outside, but also in’ its interior artangements. Not all of those who have inspected the great ship, however, have been "yes" men. In "The Listener" recently appeared an article written by Clive Bell, which made.out a not-inconsiderable case against the work which had been done by some of England’s leading artists. Inside, he says, disappointment waits yet nine- tenths of the interior would have been well enough if only the people who settle these things could let it alone. The ship is lined in wood. as a ship should be, lined with veneers of every texture and colour, ordered as often as not with considerable taste. But the good wood surface has been broken up and disfigured with what business men call "art." It was decided by those who decide these things that the Queen Mary should be decorated. To what extent England’s serious artists are gifted for decoration on a grand’ scale we do not know. Gifted and serious artists, however. do uot commend. themselves to a certain kind of business man, aud assuredly the men who ordered and interfered: With the decoration of the Queen Mary are of that kind. The "tone" of the ship is set by the management, and what the management wants, and gets, is the humorousartistic. That is the prevailing note, the Teddy Bear style, continues the writer. Nothing is suffered to be © merely

gcod-looking-it must be funny as well, which means that hardly anything is good-looking, and that almost everything is vulgar. The managers, having voted recklessly for decoration, have been overtaken by terror lest they should be accused of a taste for art-‘they will be calling us highbrows next." To escape this deadly impeachment they have (lecided to make a joke of it. The decoration of the Queen Mary is facetious. The whole ship giggles from stem to stern. Even the modest, unpainted studio, a small room provided with a piano for practice, has not escaped the infection: the carpet, the very windows are prettified with treble clefs, crotchets and quavers. In the gymnasium are comic boxers, in the cabin nursery-but the cabin nursery will not bear remembering: there is something peculiarly depressing about a comic strip raised to the power of a hundred. ‘ The answer to this criticism is, no doubt, that the company knows what its customers like. I wonder, It is siguificant, perhaps, that the tourist (second) class. apartments. are much to be preferred to the cabin, or. first. Here both. veneer and glass have been used with surer and more consistent taste and with better effect. _You cannot.expect much business man’s art for a second-class fare.