12 FEBRUARY 1921, Page 24

Mr. A. J. Finberg has written a pamphlet on The

First Exhibition • of the New Society of Graphic Art (A. Moring, 2s.), in which he contends that " the saner elements in social life " ought to rally to the support of " the saner elements in artistic production."

" The public has come to think of oil painting as the only form of pictorial art that matters, and oil painting, as all recent exhibi- tions have shown, is in a critical and parlous state." " ' Advanced' artists and ' advanced ' critics are now gloomily looking round for some way of escape out of the hopeless muddle into which their own conceit, folly, and ignorance have plunged them." There is good sense in Mr. Finberg's plea for black-and-white work, and for " form, coherence, and self-discipline " in art.