Introduction

Turnbull Library Record, Volume XV, Issue 1, 1 May 1982, Page 11

Introduction

I. McL. Wards Chairman, Winter Lectures 1981

For the Friends of the Turnbull Library and their supporters the year 1981 saw a new venture well and truly launched. Its purpose was twofold: to add something tangible to the cultural life of the city, linked to the Library and its collections, and to draw from that very rich stream of lunch-time citizens new and intellectually potent (perhaps even politically wise) champions for the ever growing interests of the Turnbull Library.

The idea which started with Colin Davis, a member of the committee of the Friends, was an excellent one and did not seem to present too many difficulties. The Library has collections that have bearing on most aspects of our national life and development. It was only a matter of finding a sufficiently attractive, inaugural topic, dividing that topic into, say, four separate aspects that could be loosely linked under the umbrella of the general title, and matching speakers to those four.

There was, of course, that ever present curse of money. A small subcommittee held to its purpose by Dr Reg Tye was determined that everything should be done in an exemplary way. Speakers should not only be given a fee worthy of the occasion and of their own professionalism, but should not have any out-of-pocket expenses. Fortunately the Minister of Internal Affairs recognised the merit in our proposal and we were able to benefit from lottery funds, by an inaugural grant that made it possible to keep admission fees to a reasonable level.

The general topic seemed to suggest itself, or perhaps the Library collections in their totality suggested it for us: ‘New Zealand through the arts, past and future’. In an election year with partisan feeling running high, it was entirely appropriate to our purpose that we should stand on politically neutral ground. We quickly settled that the arts should be represented by painting, music, poetry and something historically of longer term significance, the Maori attitude to literature from the perspective of an established oral tradition. In our enthusiasm we may have asked ourselves if this was to be the occasion of the resolution of the apophthegm contained in the last lines of that yet to be excelled evaluation of New Zealand letters and art by E. H. McCormick:

‘between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless to be born’. For speakers we invited four who were pre-eminent in their respective fields, men who by their own achievements commanded

respect throughout the land: for painting, Sir Tosswill Woollaston; for music, Jack Body; for poetry, Allen Curnow and for literature and Maori life, Witi Ihimaera.

The most appropriate venue was the room that Alexander Turnbull had built for his collection of rare books in the former premises of the Library, now Turnbull House. This fine, panelled room, now used as an assembly and lecture room for Wellington citizens, seats about one hundred people. This, or an alternative room above it, we thought, would give the right degree of intimacy, together with comfortable hearing for all who might wish to attend. Tickets for the whole series were printed, Friends were given a small discount, a limited amount of advertising was attended to, and we were in business.

It did not, of course, work out quite as we had expected, although, as you will see from the printed versions of three of the lectures that follow, it was indeed the occasion of distinguished contributions from notable men. First, our audiences: none better could have been assembled, but our Friends were more eager to sample the good fare than we had calculated and took up all the seats, leaving none for the passing citizen whom we had planned to capture. This was a very agreeable miscalculation —what can be more pleasing to the entrepreneur of whatsoever hue than the full house sign? But it has left us with the problem for the next series of satisfying our Friends, retaining a degree of intimacy, and providing space for the bienvenu.

Nor did our speakers relate their own highly illumined experiences to the general theme of‘New Zealand through . . .’ that we had expected. Instead we were given four very individual glimpses of how four very gifted speakers saw either themselves in relation to their topic or how they saw an aspect of that topic. One speaker, Jack Body, chose the latter method and discussed with a delighted audience the sounds and cadences that he had heard throughout Indonesia. It was indeed a privilege to be let into the secret of what new sounds attract the ear of a gifted composer, and we were given examples of those sounds on tape or on actual, exotic, instrument. Without those sounds the lecture would lose much of its purpose, and with reluctance we have decided not to print it.

Two of the other lectures do indeed have a common theme. Sir Tosswill said in his ‘A Narrow Peep at New Zealand Art’, ‘lt is whether we paint well that matters, much more than whether it is New Zealand. If we do —then unconsciously some New Zealand quality may be found to have crept in.’ This in apposition to a comment on the work of Mina Arndt, of whom he said that her painting belonged entirely to Europe. ‘Motueka ... is only a

romantic European dream.’ Sir Tosswill spoke of the influence on his own painting of reproductions of the works of Rembrandt, Constable and Cezanne, quoted E. C. Simpson as saying that the influences exerted by knowledge of the works of other painters is as important as the chosen subject—if McCahon is our greatest painter it ‘. . . seems to follow that New Zealand painting thrives on influence’ —and concluded that nationality, when discernible, is not the most important feature of painting.

Allen Curnow took a similar line with his proposition that the theory, any theory, of poetry is always a secondary manifestation: ‘poetics follow poems, not the other way round.’ Curnow then guided us through the attitudes to form in poetry as seen by Ezra Pound and others, ending up (too early in his talk?) with the American Charles Olson and his rules for poetry, or what Olson calls projective poetry. In this, one perception leads inevitably to another perception, the inference being that any New Zealandness is entirely incidental.

To his task of linking Maori aspirations in art and literature to the mainstream of New Zealand endeavour, Witi Ihimaera, by seeking a supra-nationality stance, also adopted an attitude similar to that of Woollaston and Curnow, in that it was intrinsic merit and historic relevance that he sought rather than something aggressively nationalistic. But with perception, warmth and humility, Ihimaera has tackled that additional problem of‘. . . the attempt to make the connection between Maori experience and the art and literature and then to extend the linkages, set and fix them tight, across the empty spaces which we all inhabit’. He is too wise to claim the final answer, but he has conceived an extremely sensitive delineation of what is involved.

These, then, are three of the inaugural Turnbull Winter Lectures. By setting personal experience and perception above all else, attributes which were matured in this land, they may indeed have given notice that we as a nation are now mature enough to concentrate on art itself and let nationality look after itself.