ART AND THE ARMY

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 22, 6 November 1944, Page 17

ART AND THE ARMY

By

in The Studio, England, August, 1944

At-Ihe traditional axiom that one I soldier in hospital is that less soldier in hospital is one less effective member of his unit can be equally well applied to the one inarticulate or dumb soldier as one less effective member of his regiment. The significance of this latter dictum has been steadily growing during the last century and since the end of the last war has made itself manifest by the creation of a department in the British Army known throughout its ranks as the A.E.C. The history of the Army Educational Corps makes most interesting and instructive reading, but I am only concerned here with a fraction of its many activities, that which concerns the introduction of art education i.e., appreciation and tuition in its curriculum. And if I put art appreciation first, it is because I feel the Army authorities are growing increasingly aware of the valuable service it renders in opening the eyes and mind and mouth of the rank and file as well as of the officer class, to whom pictures have hitherto been a “closed book.” In peacetime adult art education has made enormous strides in our towns and cities all over the country, and now the same advantages can still be obtained while the erstwhile citizen is in battle-' dress and his country in the throes of total war. That it was found possible to hold eight hundred lectures in the month of September, 1940,

when the battle of Britain was at its height says much for the cool-headed and longsighted policy governing this scheme of education, while the fact that in August, 1941, the total number of lectures in all subjects had risen to nearly four thousand demonstrates the impressive curve that has risen steeply and which will without doubt continue to rise. Each month

that has passed since then has shown a lengthening list of interests pursued, to which art now looks like being a settled and popular item. I can only speak of what I know, and although my experience as a lecturer is restricted to a small section of this vast organization, it is enough for me to write enthusiastically about all I have seen and heard. If any civilian artist in the last war had been invited to give a lecture to the “ Old Contemptibles ” on contemporary art, I think he would have been forgiven for suspecting a leg-pull. I know that when the Educational Corps first .approached me in this respect I accepted only with a sense of misgiving, and consoled myself with the fact that the •ordeal shared by me and my audience would be for one performance only !

Judge of my surprise when I arrived at the Education Centre to find the walls hung with a loan show of contemporary prints and a well-informed audience of all ranks waiting to give me a really friendly hearing. An excellent epidiascope was at my service, and during the interval for refreshments questions were asked (and very pertinent questions, too) by officers and men who not only appeared to find the art fare much to their liking, but to whom the subject was far from being an exclusive topic for the “ high-brows.” Since that first talk we have managed to cover a wide field, and many personalities in paint and many varied schools of painting have been discussed. How has such a happy and enlightened

state of affairs arisen? The editor of The Studio sensed a story and prevailed on me to dig out some facts. I have done so, and here they are. And if the story does not add up to the required standards of journalism, the blame must rest on the writer for being an artist first and a reporter only by persuasion. By the convulsive impact of war, and its necessary corollary of destruction, it is natural that the soldier as much as the artist should turn to seek mental refuge in the creative arts and thence to hope. When the world is seething with death and despair, the man in the street and his brother in arms crave for such antonyms as expressed by life and faith : art provides such nourishment for such longings. The truth that war, however tremendous and long drawn out, is but a visiting pestilence gives birth to the absolute certainty that art remains for ever.

But it must be good art, it must be progressive, it must be the art of to-day, that which impinges on the life around us. No better way of demonstrating this postulate can be found than a retrospective survey of past achievements throughout the world. A working knowledge of such a comprehensive background can alone explain and justify the aims of our contemporaries in both painting and sculpture. With the necessary aid of coloured reproductions I have been able to demonstrate the ever-widening spiral of progress in various schools of painting under such headings as Religious, Secular, Historic, Romantic, and Classic, with their sub-headings of Still-life, Genre, Portrait, and Landscape Painting. Thinking along such lines, a series of talks has developed which I hope are proving of both aesthetic and educational value. Discussing pictures is worth-while talk. Looking at great masterpieces, if only through the medium of reproduction, is stimulating to the eyes and provocative of interesting speculation and discussion afterwards ; while trying one’s hand at drawing and painting, for which soldiers appear to have a marked propensity, is splendid occupational therapy. Tuitional classes in drawing and painting are proving popular. Such questions as, why does one picture immediately attract while another of equal technical merit fails to appeal ? What

is it in one painting, apart from its subject-matter, that excites and in another that disturbs the beholder ? What was the revolutionary aim of the Impressionists and why did it all but fail ? What is the future of abstract art, and why does purely representational painting fail to satisfy ? These are but a few of the questions which the Army authorities hold as important, in so much as they evoke discussion and open the mouth of the dumb soldier. They are right. It is a familiar principle that the good soldier is one who knows what he is fighting for and what he loves. The more he knows how to discriminate between the good and the false, the greater his ability to act in the right way at the right time. The illustrations are selected from some of the favourite paintings chosen by my Army audience, with the reasons for their choice. A questionnaire for the purpose of ascertaining their reactions to the pictures is supplied to the audience at the end of each lecture, and it is these very reasons that fully endorse the importance which the A E.C. places on art talks, which not only incite the soldier to form his own opinion, but prompt him to express these thoughts both aloud and on paper. Note. The commentaries under the captions are extracted from replies to the questionnaires referred to in the last paragraph of this article.