Voices of Dissent

What is good art? A work that some people regard as a masterpiece often provokes others to invective. Around the world last week, the debate stirred partisans of both sides to heated controversy:

P: In Dublin, a bronze cast of a reclining figure by British Sculptor Henry Moore, purchased for the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, made Irish tempers boil. The lumpy-limbed figure was proudly hauled into a meeting of Dublin's Friends of the National Collections of Ireland. Up jumped fragile, 60-year-old Beatrix, Dowager Baroness Dunalley. "I am horrified by this monstrosity!" cried Lady Beatrix. "It makes me not angry but frenzied. That figure has got leprosy. It has got cancer ... If we go down to hell we will see something like that." The Friends decided to delay the presentation of the statue; said the presiding Friend, the Earl of Rosse: "It is notoriously difficult to judge works of art in cne's own day. The public should be allowed to judge."

P: In Philadelphia, the Art Commission withheld approval of Sculptor Waldemar Raemisch's half-size plaster models of two pieces of sculpture for the city's new detention home for juveniles. Photos of Raemisch's models showed a group of round-faced children gathered around a round-faced mother. Objected one member of the commission: the figures look "pie-faced." Agreed Sculptor Giuseppe Donate: the faces of the children look as if they had "retarded minds." Said Donato: "We have a responsibility to the public to see that they get a first-rate piece of art." The commission asked for photographs of full-size models before making its final decision.

P: In Manhattan, the city's plans for a $30 million Coliseum--four exhibition halls and a 20-story office building--at Columbus Circle were denounced by the influential Art News. Editor Alfred Frankfurter called the proposed design "utterly pedestrian," said the building would not fit into its surroundings, concluded that the whole project was "tragical, not comical." Frankfurter took to task Chairman Robert Moses of the city's Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, which is underwriting the Coliseum, for the "completely dictatorial way [he] is imposing this design upon the public," suggested "recourse to law" to put a halt to the project. Replied Moses: "I am not going to get mad. We are going right ahead and build the Coliseum."

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