1956 New Zealand painting (PDF, 2828.05KB) - Auckland Art Gallery

Overbeck, with their faint air of front parlourclassicism. Lindauer was no Gauguin. His workis of social and historical importance but it is notgreat art. One does not ennoble nobility byeuropeanising it. Goldie, on the other hand, is asecond-rate Lindauer. Not only did he do a greatdeal of his work from photographs, but lacked allLindauer's sincerity. This period of New Zealandpainting was hopefully succeeded by some seriousartists who, as soon as they could, left for Europefrom whence some returned, but most did not.Those who returned came back sick for Europe,and sick men and women do not produce good art.Their work is compounded of sentimentality anda watery New English Art Club palette, and adesperate choice of cosy subjects in order to escapethe uncultivated bush. To misquote FrancisThompson, what these artists sought was the ladderbetwixt Dunedin and Charing Cross instead oflooking for the character of their own environment.The development of painting in New Zealandfollowed a similar pattern through the succeedingdecades. That is to say, artists left for Europe, someto come back and continue painting in a continuousstate of retrospection, while from time to time theoccasional intrusion of a European artist would setthe pulse of New Zealand painting racing until hehimself succumbed to the pervading atmosphere ofsapless nostalgia.In New Zealand, circumstances of geography andcultural tradition are constantly snagging on eachother. Obviously the only cultures thoroughly athome in the Pacific are those of the indigenouspeoples. How, then, can an intrusive culture