Selected Writings - Margaret Preston. Margaret Preston
Australia is at present complacently sitting on a stool declaring that her youth is preventing her from doing anything. It is, ‘Wait until we are older and then you will see - at present we are so young.’ Not so young, dear Australia, but that unless some bright young students settle down to try, to originate, to think, and to ignore their Cook’s tourist experience in the galleries and schools of old countries, Australia will be simply a replica of America, who has deluged herself with the works of dead and alive artists of other lands; so much so that she has now no possibility for centuries of producing any art that is not reminiscent of another country.
One great trouble in this young country is that there is a certain diffidence in the Australian mind as to whether, owing to its extreme youth and distance from Grandpa G Britain, it is possible to produce anything as good as is done by those important people. The old heads are not troubled in this fashion, they do not believe in any work but that which they produce. Australia is swamped with it, but, alas, it is work reminiscent of their own separate countries or their teachers, who must have been imported, as Captain Cook only called on Australia something over a hundred years ago. They naturally think that such art is ‘Australian’ because it is of an Australian subject, painted by an Australian and in Australia; does it not occur to them how very similar is this ‘Australian’ picture to those of other countries? The mountains may be smaller or the skies bluer, but let them examine the picture intelligently, and, apart from such immaterial things, they will find their Australian art very much ‘School of’.
The trouble lies partly with the connoisseur and partly with the artist. The art critic does not demand anything more (except in a very few cases) than what he has offered to him and, in fact, the more like to that to which he is accustomed the better he thinks the picture. The artist as yet does not seem to be prepared ‘mentally’ to do his job, but now comes the younger generation, demanding the right to their country, to an expression in their own methods and disliking apron strings. What are their abilities? When the student has had all the technical instruction he can get, he seems to think it time to get the cash back as quickly as possible; he does not stop to think of his enormous luck in being in this young country, and that he should study its topographical features, so distinct in their character from other countries; the characteristic aspects of a nature that has produced the aboriginal, kangaroo and platypus, to know the difference of the growth of an oak to a she-oak, etc., in fact to work hard with constructive brains before he dashes into picture or the making of any of the Arts.
Who has attempted to study the spiritual side of this great land? And who, again, has studied ‘form’ from literature? How many young Australian artists have studied ‘form’ from the Bible? Stanley Spencer has done so and London and the Continent proclaim him one of the finest and most original of living artists. And then, why not study some of Roger Fry’s essays? ‘Plastic Colour’ for instance. The study of literature, if it does affect the student at all, must be of advantage, because there is no optic vision, therefore no copying by unconscious memory. A study of the difference in English and Continental literature helps to teach that each nation has its own character. Art cannot be turned into Esperanto, so that when the student discovers for himself the ‘spiritual’ differences in these countries, then let this young Australian paint his subject; but without the knowledge of this difference Art will never be born in Australia.
Here are a few art laws of the Chinese, whose art is so wonderfully distinctive:
1 Cultivate a full and catholic spirit.
2 Observe wisely and comprehensively.
3 Take in the essentials of the scene and discard trivialities.
4 Have a varied and extensive experience.
In brief, the necessity of objectivity is urged, but, at the same time, the importance of subjective expression is emphasised. Until the brain works in conjunction with the spiritual vision, Australian artists will never produce anything different from that work produced in the studios where they learn their trade. After all is said and done, Art is, aesthetically speaking, but a product of the imagination and should be worked with and enjoyed by the same faculty.
The hopes for an Australian Art at present are good; some of the younger group are personal, some believe in the Esperanto of Art, and others work out their own ideas - the promising thing is that these younger people are starting to think for themselves. The old order will go (as it did in Greece) when the artist is also student - then the Robots will be put in their proper places - mechanical instructors of the mechanical part of Art, but when finished with, put in the ‘box room’. Australia is young, admittedly, but youth is the time for experiment. The lack of money, to be able to spend years ‘searching’ before any actual ‘profit’ can be made, may be urged by the average student. Go and do something else and do Art as did Henri Rousseau, ‘le douanier’. Do not turn the one religion that is born in everybody’s body (diseased excepted), that of an ideal, into ‘good press reports’. Art is an ideal, it is mind before matter. The Robot in Art makes ‘The Man in the Street’ his equal. The student artist makes ‘The Man to Think’ and this is the only way that a public can be educated and Australia’s name be amongst the great.
Art in Australia 3rd series, No. 26. December 1928
MECCANO AS AN IDEAL
Sydney, New South Wales, has built for itself some of the finest specimens of Meccano art in the world. One, a great towering structure that sends everything around it out of perspective; it is the adored of three parts of the community - it is ‘Our Bridge’. In an odd way, it seems to be the culmination of the worship of ironbound realism that has ruled the art of Australia generally. Repetition and diligence is the order of the Meccano. Number two specimen is a new fountain which has been placed in Sydney’s principal public reserve - Hyde Park. It is a veritable repetition of all the public fountains in the world. All the laws of fountains have been obeyed in its figures: they lean, they stride, they invite criticism as to what gods they represent. They follow in perfect order in the repetition of an idea born about the time of the fig-leaf era. It is a perfect specimen of Meccano art.
The third erection is the cenotaph. This was once a distinguished-looking mausoleum of marble, simple in line, stern in its simplicity. These qualities gave offence, and now two useless-looking soldier figures have been added - a pair, one at each end of the slab. Every rag, button, etc. true to a soldier’s kit; all in order, realism without offering conviction of grief or anything else but tailors’ dummies. The cenotaph has joined the great union of Meccano.
This god, Meccano, rules this country with a rod. It demands all landscape paintings to be on a set pattern, or no Wynne or other prize - all portraits to be after set laws and rules, or no Archibald prize - a National Art out of a box, easy to do, to understand, and - to ignore!
‘Who wants Art’, says the man in the street. Here, in a country geographically and climatically different to any other country, and with its own national characteristics, an imported toy is its ideal.
While the Meccano god rules, Australian art can have no hope, as an artist may work with a knowledge of science, but he seldom works scientifically, by laws and rules. He works through his artistic vision and conception.
Art is personal, and of the spirit - both of these are anathema to the god Meccano. Let young Australia rise and smash this footling god, and demand that work showing their national characteristics can be exhibited without jeers from press reporters and aged committee men. Let young Australia have growing pains, remembering that all the outraged bellowings of the god Meccano can never stop growth. Have courage, before it is too late, before this country is poisoned by internationalism, making its art bastard forever.
Manuscripts No 2 June 1932
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