ART

THE LONDON GROUP AT THE R.W.S. GALLERIES

Tim lesson that we are only now beginning to learn from the study of the historical side of art is that, generally speaking, an art reaches its highest in the early period of its development

—in that period just before the craft has been thoroughly mastered, the period in which the artist still experiences a certain amount of struggle with his medium. The very difficulty of overmastering the material seems not only to project a certain vitality into the finished work, but at the same time produces a greater purity of expression and a technique which is more appropriate to the medium.

It is only since our younger sculptors have started to carve direct in the material that we are beginning to get anything

like that sculptural quality obtained by the Egyptian sculptors, who always seem to have set themselves a problem a little beyond their comfort. Modern artists, on the contrary, have

arrived at such an advanced stage of virtuosity that their only hope of attaining any of this vitality born of struggle will lie in their determining that their conceptive problem will always be a pace in advance of their technical accomplishment. Only by some such resolve will they be able to overcome the ener-' vating slickness that is so common in every art to-day.

The ambition of most painters, however, seems to be less concerned with art than with arriving, and ultimately settling down to a humdrum repetition of themselves ; it is a social rather than a creative gesture on their part.

The London Group has to be congratulated on the coura- geous way in which it has risked financial insecurity by re- verting to its original policy of exhibiting a large proportion

of works which display an adventurous degree of interpretation. This policy can only be attempted at very grave risk as far as

the purchase of pictures is concerned, for nowadays most pic-

tures are bought only when the artist has proven that he can repeat himself ad nauseam, and when he has become dull and

devitalized. And most buyers have not sufficient confidence in their own judgment to speculate on potentiality, nor sufficient knowledge of art and artists to recognize the fact that every work of art is an experiment, and that a problem once resolved holds no further interest to the true artist.

A large number of the pictures in this exhibition not merely reflect the struggle of apprenticeship, but are the work of artists who, although they are already well known as extremely capable painters, are not content to go on " painting London policemen " all their lives, but are continually refurnishing themselves with new art problems.

By acting as a kind of clearing-house of art where the mem- bers who become content to repeat themselves can be auto- matically absorbed by the other older societies the London Group will not only remain a vital organism which will

foster art, but will also perform a unique and necessary function in the community. Most of the other societies show only the work of arrivistes and those predestined to arrive, and the public have little chance of observing the race, by watching which they might learn much more about art than by being mere spectators at the ultimate prize-giving.

It is impossible in a short article to criticize the many interesting pictures and sculpture in this most stimulating exhibition, and I must therefore confine myself to enumerating the pictures which seemed to me to be of most value. Apart from the works of suchwell-known painters as Mr.B.Meninsky, Mr. W. P. Roberts, Mr. Mark Gertler, Mr. Duncan Grant, Mr. F. Porter and Mr. W. R. Sickert, all of whom are repre- sented by exceptionally fine works, there are also works of conspicuous merit by such young painters as Mr. Allan Walton (5), Mr. Michael Sevier (23), Miss Ruth Doggett (87), Mr. Cosmo Clark (101), Mr. J. W. Power (112), Mr. Douglas Davidson (124), and Miss Jessica Dismorr (145).

Besides the powerful design for a War Memorial by Mr. Frank Dobson there arc also good works in sculpture by Miss Betty Muntz (195), Miss Margaret Hayes (194) and Mr. Rupert Lee (191).

W. McCisca.