Correspondence

I have just finished reading the October/November issue of your magazine. There are two points made in this issue which I strongly disagree with.

In the last sentence of your article on the Wellington Technical School of Architecture, you have stated that “‘inspiration’ is the result of hard and exacting labour and not something vaguely labelled ‘intuition’”.

I do not see that, just because there is an unfortunate lack of inspiration amongst the leaders in the arts community in N.Z., we should have to presume that inspiration does not exist in its own right. This quality is based on hard and exacting labour but is surely not just the product of it. Your attitude denies the whole meaning of the word. Intuition is perhaps a gift given to very few people, but it nevertheless does exist and there is no reason for pessimism. I dislike pessimism—there is far too much of it in New Zealand at the moment.

The other point I disagree with is Mr. Simpson's amazing assertion about the arrangement of pictures in a recent display in the D.I.C. In my opinion, the exhibition was an extremely pertinent example of “the bewildering spectacle of pictures crowded frame to frame on limited wall space”. This overcrowding was very obvious and all the more obvious from the smallness of the room. The space available was suitable only for the exhibition of four or five large pictures or some eight small pictures.

To my disgust, the same thing happened at the recent exhibition of modern British lithographs from the Redfern Gallery. With two walls in the main room of the Art Gallery to space these fine pictures on, they were crowded on to one wall with about 3 in. between each picture.

Now here's a bouquet. My congratulations must go to Mr. Patience for his excellent article. If this were to be expanded, and more details added, it would make an excellent booklet for sale to the general home-building public.

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