THE IMPERMANENCE OF PAINTINGS IN RELATION TO ARTISTS' MATERIALSAuthor(s): GluckSource: Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 112, No. 5097 (AUGUST 1964), pp. 720-721Published by: Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and CommerceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41367673 .

Accessed: 25/06/2014 10:52

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce is collaborating with JSTOR todigitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the Royal Society of Arts.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.44 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 10:52:06 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS AUGUST 1 964 the public and business life of the city. He was engaged in the textile trade. Since 1929 he had been a member of the City Council, sitting in the Labour interest, and since 1946 an Alderman. He was a former Chairman of the Manchester Education Committee, a Member of the Manchester Regional Hospital Board, and a Governor of Manchester Grammar School and several other large schools in the region. He also gave much of his time in the service of Jewish welfare and charities, and only a week before his death had been elected President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. He became a Fellow of the Society in 1961.

MR. CHARLES TE WATER Mr. Charles Te Water, LL.B., former President of the League of Nations and South

African High Commissioner in London, died in Cape Town on 6th June, aged 77. The son of Dr. Thomas Te Water, a former Colonial Secretary, he was born in

Cape Province and educated at Scottish and English schools and at the University of Cambridge. He was called to the Bar of the Inner Temple in 19 10, when he returned to his own country to practise. He represented Central Pretoria in the Union Parliament from 1924 to 1929. In the latter year he was appointed High Commissioner in London, and held this post until the defeat of General Hertzog's government in 1939. During his official residence in Europe he became closely interested in the work of the League of Nations, and in 1933 was elected President of the Assembly. From 1948 to 1949 he was South African Ambassador at Large. In latter years he had devoted himself to charitable work, particularly on behalf of crippled persons. He was Chancellor of the University of Pretoria, and a former President of the South African Association of Arts. He had been a Fellow of the Society since 1941.

CORRESPONDENCE

THE IMPERMANENCE OF PAINTINGS IN RELATION TO ARTISTS* MATERIALS

From Gluck , The Chantry House, Steyning , Sussex. I feel I must comment on and correct certain statements made by Mr. Francis

A. Taylor in his letter published in the June issue of the Journal. Firstly, Professor H art ridge's interesting articles were published only in two, not

three issues of Paint Technology , those of January and February 1962. Secondly, these articles were entitled 'The Permanence of Artists' Pigments'.

As Mr. Taylor was present at my lecture on 12th February and will no doubt have read the text in the April issue of the Society's Journal , he should have realized that I stressed particularly the misunderstandings that arise owing to wrongful nomenclature and especially the substitution of the word 'pigments' for 'paints', or as Mr. Taylor calls them 'colours'. As pigments can alter appreciably during manufacture and their permanence can be affected also by the media in which they are ground for paint, it is doubly important when dealing with any question of their permanence to bear these points in mind. I dealt with these matters in my lecture, as has Professor Hartridge in a less exhaustive way in his articles.

Finally, having been instrumental in bringing the whole question of artists' materials into the orbit of the British Standards Institution, and having sat on the B.S.I. Technical Committee dealing with this subject for over 11 years vis-à-vis the repre- sentatives of the Artists' Colourmen, I consider Mr. Taylor's last sentence justifiable but unrealistically optimistic in thinking that the Artists' Colourmen 'would be only too pleased to clear the air'. Faced by direct and important questions put to them in the confidential circumstances of our committee meetings, on more than one occasion

720

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.44 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 10:52:06 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

AUGUST 1964 CORRESPONDENCE

the representatives of the National Gallery, the British Museum, the Courtauld Institute and I have been met with refusals to reply on the grounds that the answer was 'a trade secret'.

That is why in my lecture of 1954 to the Museums Association, of which reprints were given away on 12th February, I stressed the necessity of founding a Research Fellowship for artists' materials at one of our universities, and if my suggestion had been heeded, Mr. Taylor's wish for 'an accepted authority, detached from any vested interests' to deal with these matters would, by now, have been fulfilled.

NOTES ON BOOKS

the two cultures : and A second look. By C. P. Snow. London , Cambridge University Press, 1964. ios 6 d net

When this lecture first appeared, a disproportionate amount of attention was given to the contrast, that Snow commented on, between the scientific and literary approach to the world. Most commentators fell into the same error as Snow and failed to realize that an enormous number of people, of very varying qualities, are now called scientists. If attention is confined to scientists of clearly demonstrable productivity and originality, illiteracy is not so widespread. Snow is probably in error when he says Scientific education starves our verbal faculties'; there is no reason to think that the less distinguished scientists would have had better verbal faculties if they had had any other type of education.

Nevertheless it is a pity that so many of the junior scientists should be uninterested in literature. It is possible that their teachers have tried to interest them in the wrong sort. English should be taught so as to get people accustomed to clear, succinct, phrasing; this objective can be attained just as well with contemporary novels, or even with Fanny Hill , as with the traditional classics. The first step in inculcating literacy is to catch the reader's interest.

The other half of the cleavage with which Snow was concerned is the disregard by most writers for the main form of contemporary creation: this is technology, and the results and methods of scientific research. Until this century an educated person was aware of the science of the day. Now unawareness seems to be a matter for pride. This is the outstanding anomaly of our age.

This contrast between the 'two cultures' was not, however, the real theme of the lecture. It was brought in to explain why those who control the direction and applica- tion of scientific research are so unaware of the possibilities. Repeatedly Snow stressed the part that applied science has played in removing poverty and malnutrition from much of the world, the possibilities of making similar changes elsewhere, and the fact that many of the inhabitants of these still underdeveloped regions know this and will not rest until they have a decent standard of living. On these themes he writes humanely, forcefully and effectively. Both the original essay and the supple- ment consider the strategy of getting science used for human betterment and of organizing an educational system that will produce scientists who want to do this and administrators who will let them.

The first step is industrialization. Romantics quail at the thought and ask whether a verminous tropical village is any worse than a Victorian slum. Admittedly, developing communities have a lamentable tendency to repeat all the errors of their teachers. But they need not do this, and the prime task for people with sensibility and verbal skill is to see that they do not - to see that the advantages of technology are gained without any repetition of the mistakes that our forefathers made. This will not happen for as long as writers follow the traditions of Ruskin and Thoreau and shy away from the problem instead of trying to solve it.

721

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.44 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 10:52:06 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions