Man and the Arts pin a changing world Mithe Arts in a Chang- orld Was the sub- lecture delivered Kettle of the Uni- us, England and illiam University, ne Dupont Audi- ) 67 recently. d most important ™ Seems to me,” » IS that it is a and that man a ‘Shelley put it, € mind ‘suscept- » Unapprehended ot thought and sa. “ent on to re- Ce that in pri- there was no een fine and the Contrary the use they were n between fine ‘sis historically eo) , he noted. “Tt Very far and is Nong primitive Painters in the io, Ould have been —» Say whether € fine or use- ety orem makers Y. So, for that ithe © medieval me 8teat Christian Were fine and 2 a large extent isn, . USeful.” - ip isig 7 between fine and Mids 4, Kettle noted, i lan “2 increase in ions? 224, especially 8S pore, VOFK to the the ae is inferior; " art “fn ing classes as distinct ity Na the whole i her n activity dif- abo 1 ctivities, and Which one in pV more re- “Ssarily Rettle's view ing t its, netratin le Teveals con- 10n as well as He found grounds for criti- cism of much contemporary art for its tendency to “run away from the great challenges and take refuge “‘in little havens and niches of parochialism and de- spair. Isn’t it, when one consi- ders it, a curious contradiction that, at a moment in history when the potentialities of life— through education; throvgh science, through travel, through- out: the mass media of commu-- nication—are for untold millions of human beings far greater than they have ever been before, that so much of our art, whether it’s literature, music, painting, cine- ma or what have you—seems to be bogged down in either the cheap sentimentality of commer- cialized culture or in aridity, pessimism and neurosis?” He found a facile rejection of reality, a rejection of any real sense of human heroism or achievement, an assumption that the inner life of the individual is in some sense more real than objective reality and can indeed be separated from it, in much contemporary art. This is de- plored; and on this basis several of the films shown in the recent Montreal film festival came in for sharp criticism, as did also the audience which seemed to accept and applaud them. He had praise for the Hungarian film entitled Le Sac, and a Swedish film Here is your Life. An Italian film entitled The Garden of Delight, he found “appalling.” Dr. Kettle criticized Marxists, who “over the past half centu- ry,” he felt, had expounded “a narrow, and ultimately unten- able view of art and its function —and much worse, inhibiting and preventing in practice the development of certain areas and kinds of art. “We all know the kind of thing I am referring to,” he said, “such tendencies as ele- vating of a rather narrow theory of ‘socialist realism’ into an ob- ligatory doctrine, the dismissal of most modernist art as essen- tially decadent, the temptation to judge literature simply in terms of its immediate political usefulness.” He felt it was time all socialists and communists put this behind them, and self- critically recognized that to some extent this has contribut- ed to the dilemma of many hon- est artists today, who now find themselves “caught between a contempt for capitalist values and a fear of unreasonable in- terférence with their work in socialist countries.” He op- posed “capitulation to individu- alism” but argued for “exper- iment and open-mindedness in the arts” as the way to “a live- ly, healthy, progressive culture.” Dr. Kettle’s plea was for an historical view of art, to see its forms and trends, not as some- thing mysterious, but as having deep roots in history. “It is not surprising that in the 1960s many intellectuals should feel rootless and helpless,” he said. There has probably never been a society more inimical to the arts, than capitalist society. And artists either rebelled or opted out. Never before had the artist felt so alien to the society in which he found himself. He was at once free to the point of futility. Criticism of the arts, therefore, in Dr. Kettle’s view, must take into account the con- text in which they emerge. He stressed that one could hope for a more positive and healthy and more universal and embracing outlook in the arts only with the resolution of the problems of society through a transition to socialism. He con- cluded: “unless people in the mid-20th century have a per- spective, a general aim and sense of direction to which they can commit themselves and in which in a general way they can see hope, they are unlikely to find any point of view from which to interpret coherently the choices and problems with which they are faced.” Dr. Kettle, since 1954, has been a member of the National Executive of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He goes from Montreal to take up the post of Professor of Literature at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Africa. He spoke at the Dupont Audito- rium under the auspices of Les Etudes Horizons, (Horizons Re- search). C.V. VARIATIONS ON A MUSICAL THEME a /\\ FILM MUSIC oe NURSERY SONG ce MODERN MUSIC Ehrenburg speaking at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto at an Aid to the Soviet Union rally during World War Il. Ehrenburg’s mighty and human heart is stilled ORLD - FAMOUS Soviet writer, journalist and peace champion Ilya Eh- renburg died in Moscow last week at the age of 76, follow- ing a heart attack. His passing will be mourned not only by the Soviet people but by millions the world over who, through his activities in all three spheres, saw in him a true Soviet internationalist and hu- manist. Men and women of art and letters in most countries, even when they differed from him politically, came to respect his singleness of purpose in the fight for peace in the World Council of Peace of which he was a lead- ing member since its founda- tion. Born in 1891 in a Russian Jewish intellectual family, liva Ehrenburg emigrated to Paris at the age of 17 in 1908. All his life, France was his second home. His outstanding talents as a descriptive journalist were de- voted! to the anti-fascist cause in the 1930s. During the Spanish Civil War his despatches from the Republican side were a powerful element in rallying support in the fight against Spain’s fascist generals led by Gen. Franco. And when World War II be- gan, his reports on the fall of France showed him again to be an outstanding war correspon- dent. All too soon, these talents were put to their toughest test when Hitler attacked the Soviet Union. He distilled into them the hatred of fascism felt by the Soviet people and decent people everywhere, as well as their de- termination to accept any Sacri- fice to achieve victory over fas- cism. : After the war, and at a time when the cold war began to poi- son international relations. Ilya Ehrenburg devoted himself un- Sstintingly to the cause of peace, by his work in the World Coun- cil of Peace. His attitude was perhaps typi- fied in a striking phrase he used at the Second World Peace Con- gress in 1950, when he declared: “War is not the midwife of his- tory, it is an abortionist of the flower of humanity.” His most withering scorn and hatred was reserved for the war propaganda, which he des- cribed as “the most perilous and most deadly weapon of all.” “Those who want a new war have plenty of money, plenty of paper, plenty of wireless waves, long and short,” he told that memorable 1950 Congress. “But what does all their loudness signify beside the beating of the human heart?” It was after the death of Sta- lin in 1953 that Ehrenburg in his famous novel “The Thaw,” let the world begin to hear the beat- ing of the human heart in Soviet Russia. His novel provided a title too, for his whole period in Soviet literature when writers young and old were finding new hori- zons after the freeze-up of the later years of Stalin’s life. But it was in his monumental memoirs entitled “Man, Years— Life,” that the Soviet people, and in translation, people the. world over, found the true humanism of Ilya Ehrenburg. Some people found him gruff, but this was merely a protective covering. He was a gentle man, always approachable, particular- ly by young Soviet writers and artists, who found in him a tow- er of strength and someone pre- pared to speak his mind against philistines however highly placed. September 15, 1967—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 9