oe of the Soviet Union
Sy ae be disturbed and
Bene ues by recent reports
ae sing of an exhibition
an ngs in Moscow, on the
: ‘ ay of its opening.
Benen anus, Sen ober. nc
een ich artists have been
a ian their work censured
ast June is from exhibitions:
Pitre... € painter Oskar Ra-
a the subject of attack.
rian peony when an im-
ae uistoric exhibition was
Sidinel Moscow, works by
rere pe aend Chevel, which
fffor ihe avé been on show
Bears, saa first time in 40
ben ihe eee minute,
= < : n
ae yenship Trade ee
nae factory, an exhibi-
“ - €en closed only an
€r its Opening.

Dhiste =:
t May be the

a people
? Beauely. upset by. this
Praturaly peer direct interest
MES narpens their reaction.

‘

iS specially
. It is even
oo f the man in
» -N€ woman in the

They are de

! Not Prived if they can-

lot see
‘living soies art of their. own
Fable icq.) if all that is avail-

Bo WPether jy ee OF the past
4 mM the form of old

=

|_THEATRE

HENGE
HN AND’S Profumo. scan-

Ss a

P.. ser a Canada’s Munsin-
T Sively Twos Were not exclu-
! in 1g Wentieth Century. Back
the ce ondon was shocked by

Gladero_ if Charles Dilke
» bright Stone Liberal with a
of Politica} future) accused

. Sexy
4 “Ons, excesses and aberra-
q Mich
Right ewes play, The
WY baseq peapile Gentleman,
if CUrrenty 'S actual case, is
Central p° View at Toronto's
ft the year's Tary Theatre. It is
fl Aries P; Second offering by

i, Oductions,

As -

a th

, Plot unfolde ee!s-within-wheels

I, Makes ee as each character
to iustity Confession or attempis
HX shall, mself, it appears that

iy is tellin Never quite know who

NOt, Fj : the truth and who is

| everyone yt is apparent that

er o} ¥ Mvolved is, to a great-

é aay degree, lying.

in itg = S special fascination

ay of Ninetcenth
Nglish Establishment

Socialist society _must be open

masters or of the dead work of
academic painters.

The reader who cannot read
novels which are truly about the
life in which he participates, who
is not permitted to have his heart
stirred by the images of the
youngest as well as the oldest
poet—he is deprived, his liberty
is infringed, even more than
that of the suppressed poet or
painter.

These problems have their
history. In part it is the history
of the birth of the first socialist
state; in part it is the history
of art, which is not today what
it was yesterday.

The Soviet Union, after 50
years of hard work and suffer-
ing, is now powerful, prosperous

‘and secure. We have seen al-

ready how in certain spheres she
leads the world.

The first man in space, the
first photographs of the hidden
side of the moon, are symbolic
achievements that assure us that
within a generation she will have
avertaken the capitalist world
in every materia] respect.

We know that the cost of

these triumphs has been heavy; -

but they are more than technical
triumphs; they have enormous
moral weight; they are historic
as well as scientific in their im-
portance.

They have shown the imagina-
tive vitality, as well as the sheer

power to survive, of the first
state created by Communist-led
revolution.

In the socialist new world for
which we work, we shall have
not merely more gadgets, faster
transport, color TV, instant food
in capsules—or any other of the
once-fantastic but now-realized
dreams of modern man — we
shall have what is more precious
—leisure.

Not time to kill, but time,
opportunity and vision to realize
our human individuality within

(ET EE

By CHARLES MORRIS

Londen Morning Star
Art Critic

EEE

the great family; in a word, to
live. é

More and more, this is what
art is about—even though it is
so tangled for us with the cor-
ruption of a capitalist world.
Art is not just the making of
splendid objects, defined as mo-
dels of beauty, set up for the
glorification of the great and
rich and the fame of “their”
artists.

Most of the long history of
man has seen art directly in the
service of religion: for a tiny
part of history, it has served

19th century
rofumo case

morality on two levels—the so-
cial and the political.

One has learned to recognize
political skulduggery, to shield
ourselves with a protective skep-
ticism, and to take it for granted
that politicians will slander,
double-deal and betray. It is
more unpleasant to admit that
such behavior can be common
practice in purely personal mat-
ters. The Right Honorable Gen-
tleman, in unraveling the rela-
tionships of his people, mer-
cilessly lays bare their venality.

The production, directed by
Sean Mulcahy, revives the Vic-
torian decor, its costumes and
its mannerisms. The atmosphere
of the period and the sound of
its speech, evoked by the play-

wright, are faithfully reproduced. -

An experienced company,
technically skilled, illumine: the
diverse characters. John Gardin-
er, as the accused Dilke, is
charming, ambitious, a magnetic
figure. Vernon Chapman’s Joseph
Chamberlain is the suave, dia-
mond-hard politician. Patrick

Boxill, as Sir James Russell, ex-
udes resourcefulness as the elder
statesman. Jess Walton, as Dil-
ke’s one-time love interest, is
clearly a woman in whom emo-
tional fires burn deeply.

Nancy Kerr, Morna Wales,
Norma Clark, Sheila Haney,
Paisley Maxwell and Christine
‘Bennett, as women of various
interesting facets, together with
Bruce Gray, Dennis Thatcher,
Claude Bede and Paul Craig,
contribute significantly to the
production.

The Right Honorable Gentle-
man has some of the character
of an English mystery story and
the director, perhaps influenced
by this quality, plays it cool. The
result is smooth technique and
suspense but, with few excep-
tions, little heat, and we do not
sufficiently identify with the
figures on stage.

On the whole, however, the
play is intelligently staged and
of more than ordinary interest.

—Martin Stone.

other ends; dynastic and person-
al, political and moral, esoteric
and luxurious; even popular.

In art no Jess than in science,
the way must be open for crea-
tion, invention, discovery. In art,
these are not concerned with
establishing laws of general va-
lidity to be applied in new con-
texts.

They are concerned with the
establishment and communica-
tion of experience, the isolation
of things in all their singularity,
the enlargement of our sense of
reality.

Art cannot lose its grip on the
particular and the real; nothing
is more fatal to it than the search
for ideal beauty.

“There is no excellent beau-
ty,” said Francis Bacon, the
father of modern _ scientific
though, “that hath not some
strangeness in the proportion.”

Art may also be propaganda,
like the stained glass of Canter-
bury, the Sistine Ceiling, Picas-
so’s Guernica, the Bayeux Ta-
pestrv—none, of which offers us
undistorted visual fact.

It may also be like the whole
of Dutch 17th century painting
—the self-portrait of a nation—
concerned to mirror life: it may
be concerned with beauty and
pleasure, with sex, with social
life, with dreams.

It may do away with any. de-
scriptive act, and set out to add
to our environment new forms
and patterns—as the paintings
of Mendrian and Nicholson have
done by their impact on archi-
tecture.

It will always, whatever its
aims, alter our way of looking
at our world. Nor should we for-
get that art is also the remak-
ing of men,

In doing, in making, man
makes himself. Art is therefore

It is for art not less than science
to open up new worlds”

not only to be received, not only
admired in museums; it .is an
activity, a means of reaching
out to enlarge and enrich our
world, our self-knowledge.

The social function and foun-
dations of art are changing—so,
inevitably, the forms of art; the
clear lines that not so long ago
defined them are dissolving. This
may be confusion and decadence;
it is also life and growth.

The portrait, landscape, still-
life, nude—all in turn thrown up
out of an art that once recog-
nized no such forms, into which
they were illicit and threatening
intrusions, are now for most of
us the norms against which, sus-
piciously, we measure the new.

Now movement, changes and
contrasts of material, mixed me-
dia, the time-element, motion,
transpositions of form, are also
possible; and in art that which
is possible becomes intperative,
for art must reach out fo experi-
ence, testing, rejecting, construc-
ting, elaborating. It is for art
not less than science to open up
new worlds. -

Socialism can create the open
situation in which this is possi-
ble, in which art becomes, as it
has not been since remote times
—when it was not art—art for
all.

As 1 write, an exhibition is
being prepared, to be held in
the Exhibition Hall at the Cam-
den Studios in London—to raise
funds for medical supplies to
Vietnam. Artists of every kind
have contributed work.

Much of it—perhaps most of
it—-will be of a kind to horrify
the officials who closed the Mos-
cow Exhibition. Little of it will
be academic and formal. But all
of it will be life-asserting, life-
enhancing, life-supporting. Sure-
ly there is food here for thought.

ht

es 3S - tee

aah

February 24, 1967—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7

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