The Inscrutable

The approach to Art of New Zealand's youth is reflected in these ways of dress. Their aim is to play the eccentric, to strike a pose, to be Inscrutable. But this is surely not the attitude of a genuine artist? Jimmy Baxter, for example, is sincere and conscientious in his approach to life; he is keen to engage; to understand the other man's feelings; he his art.

But the attitude at the Arts Festival is exactly the opposite. Write down the words first and wonder what it means afterwards. Obsecurity and subtlety are synonyms. The triumph or communication is non-communication. Words, words, words written by superficial pseudo-poets in love with the image of their own personalities, and pretentious prose-writers having the intellectual stature of an amoeba and the verbal ability of a horse!

Professor Rhodes, in his address, emphasised this point—the artist must cease to be introspective for its own sake, he must establish contact with the community. Communication is just as important as self-expression.

Perhaps we can develop his remarks by saying that there is a "complementarity principle" between these two terms. Complete self - expression communicates nothing (e.g. Surrealism, or prose in nonsense language), and complete communication means that the message is trivial. N.Z. art, particularly in the literary field tends toward the former extreme.