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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 2, No. 10. June 14, 1939

Understanding Art

Understanding Art.

Mr. Simpson commenced his lecture with a brief talk on the difficulty of understanding art. "If you put figures on a blackboard, anybody can see whether you are right or wrong—but you can't argue about art. You can't prove it as you can a science—all you can do is to excite people's minds by showing them art."

This theme was developed with the aid of a splendid collection of lantern slides. Commencing with a survey of the importance of line in art—illustrated by Chinese art and script, and Persian writing, Mr. Simpson demonstrated how the effect of weight and mass could be obtained. Sculpture did not necessarily represent mass—witness some of the [unclear: exquisite] figures on the Chartres Cathedral; and pure line could also represent mass effectively, as was shown by his analysis of a sketch by Matisse.