Seagram’s Cities of Canada
example of art made fo order

WENT to see the “House of
Seagram” exhibit, Cities of
Canada, when it was shown in To-
ronto (it will open at Vancouver
Art Gallery on January 29), simp-
ly because of the purely Canadian
character of the show. I wanted
to see how 26 of our best known
artists had interpreted our coun-
try
_ At a first glance you are en-
tranced by many things in the
paintings. Brilliant colors flash
from all sides. You marvel at the
construction, at the obvious skill
with which these prominent Can-
adian artists have done their
work. However, the longer you
study the 65 canvases hanging be-
fore you, the more pressing does
an answer to this question be-
come: Is this really and truly

Canada? Do these paintings con-

vey the essential character of our
country, the soul.of its people?

And in truth it must be said

that with all its glitter and color,
despite the highly skilled tech-
nique, this exhibit does not
breathe the true essence of Can-
ada: Nor can the viewer himself
feel a close relationship-with that
which is presented on the can-
vases.
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This does not mean that the
representations as conceived by
the painters are completely un*
truthful or that they do not re-
semble the cities they portray.
Many of them are so accurate

that one can even recognize this -

or another section of a particular
city. But what is captured is in
a great measure merely a photo-
graphic truth. And such work,
no matter how well it may be
painted, must give a shadow view
of reality.

Most of the canvases are there-
fore photographic copies of frag-
ments of various Canadian cities,
albeit painted with a multi-color-
ed beauty of their own.

All the paintings are devoid of
people. Missing completely are
the creators of the very build-
ings, parks, factories and ships
which are portrayed. Missing too
are the toiling Jhands, the bent
back and’ the wrinkled face of the
Canadian farmer who has so ably
cultivated the soil which serves
as background for many of the
paintings. The result is that the
soul of Canada has been left out.

This is the “art for art’s safe”
approach which denies Man for
the sake of “Beauty.” An artist
who does not want to identify
himself with Man, who devotes
himself solely to “Nature,” who
paints only the secondary beauty
of what has been created by hu-
man labor — such an_artist’s
work must be static, immobile
and emotionally pale. —

This does not mean that real-
ism is achieved only then when a
worker-type or a group of work-
ers appears in a painting. No, the
artist can, without portraying the
toiling people themselves, still
capture the true mood and char-
acter o fa particular city.

‘Such an example is afforded by
Alan C. Collier in his powerful
canvas, “Sudbury.”

Anyone looking at the picture,
particularly one who knows Sud-
bury, cannot help but penetrate
into the life of the people of this

city. With all your senses you.

can feel the smoke and fumes, the
ringing of the copper and nickel
_ being smelter. And even though
no human is seen in this picture,
and the panorama presented is
rather like a still-lif@ neverthe-
less the spectator can see before
his eyes the thousands of miners
who daily go down and come up
_ from the bowels of the earth.

A somewhat similar impression:

is created by the painting “Trois

Rivieres,’ by Jacques de Tonnan-
cour; “Sarnia,” by R. York Wil-
son and “Hull,” by Harold Bea-
ment—although even these three
painters are too concerned with
certain niceties detracting them
from capturing the true character
of these three important indus-
trial centres.

‘ The canvas “Hamilton” by A. J.

Casson is ably executed, but the
artist concerns himself more with
the background, with the environs
of the city, than with the mighty
industrial centre Hamilton actu-
ally is. This city of steel appears
only in the distance, through sha-
dows from afar.

The same can be said of most
of the other works in the exhibit.

The City of Montreal, for ex-
ample, is represented by a paint-
ing» of Dominion Square. The
artist, Albert Cloutier, gives us
an accurate picture of this famous
square in the heart of the city.
But can this painting serve as a
personification of Montreal? Does
this represent the essence of a
city which contains giant plants
and: great factories; a city of ter-
rible slums and piesa = pov-
erty?

Not long ago I had an oppor-
tunity to see in the studio of
Frederick B. Tavlor, one of the
artists represented in the exhibit,
@ number of paintings which do
succeed in capturing the essential
character of this metropolis.
From these canvases there cry
forth all the injustices committed
against, the working people of

that city, all the evils of our so-
ciety.
$e bos os
It appears that the initiators of
this show — the multi-millionaire
liquor corporation “The House of
Seagram”’ headed by Samuel
Bronfman — did not want such
pictures included in their exhibit.
They wanted no true representa-
tions of Canadian life. These pic-
_tures are therefore “art made-to-
‘order,’ made to suit the tastes
and aims. of the millionaire who
commissioned them. *

The irony is that in our so-call-
ed “free world” there is a con-
stant beating of the drums to the
effect that the artist enjoys noth-
ing but liberty while in the so-
cialist countries the artist is “dic-
tated to” in the matter of what
he can. create.

The “Seagram’s” exhibit proves
that the exact opposite is true.

From the socialist countries
there is emanating a realistic,
truthful art derived frdm actual
life. The art of ‘the capitalist
world on the other hand is_cut
and measured by the dictates of
the dollar.

The real picture of Canada and
its cities has yet to be painted.
This will come together with the
development of a truthful, inde-
pendent, people’s culture in our
country, a culture devoid of harm-
ful foreign influences. Then the
world will also gain a realistic

portrayal of our country and the —

peoples of the world will respect
and value Canada for what she is
in all truthfulness.

—JOSEPH GERSHMAN.

Vancouver Art Gallery
displays Eskimo art

THE art of the Canadian Eskimos

is unknown to most of us, and
with reason. It is scarce, for the
Eskimos create their carvings of
rock and ivory for their own sat-
isfaction and the number of pieces
produced by a small and scattered
‘people is not large. And, until
the last few years, they have re-
ceived little official encourage-
ment in perpetuating their art
against all the influences tend-
ing to destroy their traditional

pattern of living from which it
springs.

Outside the permanent collec-
tions in some. of our museums,
most Eskimo carvings are in the
private collections of those whose
work has taken them to the Arctic
at one time or another. Only
when such collections are loaned |
to public institutions do most of
us get the opportunity to see this
little known art.

Some 40 carvings from three
private collections are now on dis-
play until February 6 in Vancou-
ver Art Gallery and no one inter-
ested in the native art of our
Eskimo and Indian peoples should
miss the opportunity to see them.

The art of the Eskimos is. a
realistic reflection of. their en-

vironment. Their subjects are
those with whom they share their
» harsh life, shown with affection
and occasionally with humor in
the hunt and on the trail, or in
their camps as in the frequent
theme of mother and child.

The animals they carve, the
angry bear, the wounded seal, the

kneeling caribou, express every- -

day incidents recaptured through
the eyes of artists who are also
“hunters dependent upon their ob-
servation for their success But
though the subjects are often the
same, the refusal of one artist
to copy another’s work produces
infinite variety.

The carvings on display are
from the Eastern Arctic and, un-
like the Western Arctic and
Alaska where fossil ivory is often
used, most of them are fashioned

from stone with ivory used for ©

the horns and tusks of animals
and the harpoons carried by hu-
man figures. . )

An excellent source of informa-

tion about the display is a book-. -

let, Canadian Eskimo Art, pub-
lished last‘ year by the Depart-
ment of Northern Affairs and Na-
tional Resources. + :

—HAL GRIFFIN.

New Drama Workshop play

p= Drama Workship players

of the United Jewish People’s
Order will present The World of
Sholem Aleichem to Vancouver
audiences on February 12 and 13
at the York Theatre, 639 Com-
mercial Drive, here.

The play is an English language

dramatization adapted from the
writings of the classic Yiddish

humorists, Sholem Aleichem and,

I L. Peretz, and was the hit of the
theatrical season when it was
presented originally in New York.

New Soviet ilps

A new Soviet film which received its first showing here last week
is Maximka, the story of a Negro boy rescued from American slave

‘traders’ by Russian sailors.

The movie is hailed as one of: the best

to come out of Soviet studios in the last few years.

eccomel mepied 4

Scottish. Renaissance

ROM around 1900 the senti-
mentality and hypocrisy cloak-
ing the ugly realities of Scottish
life were blasted wide open by
two forces.

The first, political and social,
was the tremendous zeal for so-
cialism, sweeping especially the
coalfields, and led by men like
Keir Hardie, John McLean and
Willie Gallacher.

he other was the blows struck
in literature by George Douglas
Brown .in the House of Green

Shutters, then by Lewis Grassie |

Gibbon, author or the Scots Quair,
and by Hugh McDiarmid.

McDiarmid is more than a poet
of genius.

The Scottish Renaissance, as
we know it, with its sudden and

expanding fertility of poets and ~

its rediscovery of Scots as a liter-
ary language, would be almost
unthinkable without McDiarmid.

He has acted as a spark, an in-

_spirer, an example.

Controversial, vicious and’ bit-
ing in polemic, he has ceaselessly

struggled in verse, prose and
speech against the philistinism of
bourgeois society, and for a hard,
practieal, realistic poetry for and
by the people of industrial Scot-
land.

McDiarmid has been in politi-
cal life, as in poetry, a fighter for
working-class power, a champion
of peace, and an unswerving
friend of the Soviet Union.

The very violence of his attacks
has often led him astray. But
without this he would not be Mc-
Diarmid.

Selected Poems, by Hugh Mc-
Diarmid seems a very personal
choice by the editor, Oliver
Brown. It is scrappy and unsat-
isfactory, but it should serve to
introduce some to McDiarmid.

“A Seottish poet maun assume
The burden 0’ his people’s doom
And dee to brak their . livin’
tomb,” he says. Long may Mc-
Diarmid live to carry on the task.

—NORMAN BUCHAN

Film festival winner

The British film version of Romeo and Juliet, made in Italy by
the Italian director Bernato Castellani, won the grand prix award at
the Venice Film Festival as the best film of 1954. The leading roles
are played by Susan Shentall and Laurence Harvey (above).

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JANUARY 21, 1955 — PAGE 8