Art History Today

A Picture of Cameron’s Britain?

It's hard not to think about politics these days with the mammoth ideological debates raging about welfare, education, housing, disability, the undeserving/deserving poor, the enforced move to the banlieus… the list runs on.

Usually art critics steer clear of high octane politics, but not so Jonathan Jones of the Guardian who is firing up readers with his own critique of Cameron and his leeches. Good! In a recent post, Jones muses on what a Cameronian Britain could look like and asks how Victorian art could help us picture it. .

"It might help us picture the Britain that is being made if we compare two paintings – one a Victorian favourite, the other dating from the very dawn of the 20th century. The Blind Girl (1856) by John Everett Millais is a work of art with a social conscience, or at least social sentiment. It portrays two children in rags, on the outskirts of a prosperous village: cast out and unprovided-for, the blind girl and her sister wander the British countryside, playing music for pennies. But as she sits exhausted on the ground, the blind girl casts her face upward and heaven's light shines on her.

Contrast this pathetic scene with Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo's 1901 painting The Fourth Estate. Not a painting of journalists – the fourth estate in this painting is the working class. The organised working class. United and imposing, they march forward, irresistible, to claim what has been denied down the centuries. In a history of modern society, you could place these pictures side by side to show how, in just half a century, the "poor" became the organised proletariat, and charity gave way to socialism.

"The fact is, the poor are made to look isolated, vulnerable and politically harmless. Look again at Millais's child beggars; the painting, by the way, is in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. He portrays them at the very edge of the human community, cast out of mainstream British society which looks so cosy in the distance. They are set apart by their poverty. They will never threaten anyone else. They will suffer and die. By contrast, the very definition of the working class in Pellizza da Volpedo's painting is collective strength: poor proletarians and educated artisans unite in struggle. The poor are pitiable. The working class is revolutionary."

Given the incessant battle of words over work, I'm wondering if Ford Maddox Brown's painting of the same title might be more appropriate. Workfare Victorian style!

 

 One other thing. If the proposed local government cuts are implemented, and lots of jobs in the cultural sector are shed as a result, then it might be difficult to keep museums like Birmingham Art Gallery open for the public- poor or not- to see Millais's 'Blind Girl'. Just a thought.

JJ is at it again. Santo di Titi's portrait of Machiavelli compared with Cameron's unctuous smile.

Digital Renaissance and Victorian Nudes

I've got to take time out from writing lecture notes or I'll go insane. Instead, I thought I'd ramble on about last weekend's diet of T.V. art history before the next helping comes upon us tomorrow.

 

Last Saturday on BBC 2, we enjoyed the continuing adventures of Matthew Collings in old master land. Colling's Renaissance Revolutions saw our hero standing in a gallery while everything whirled round him as he calmly contemplated the art on the wall. You probably know I'm fascinated by Matt's turnaround from Brit art pundit to renaissance aesthete, which I've commented on here. The old master under the microscope here was quite young: Raphael, whose Madonna of the Meadow must have been produced when he was just out of his teens. Matt promised to show us how the young artist had used colour to create the beauty of the work; he made good on his promise by adapting digital colouring technology to demonstrate Raphael's technique. First he drained the painting completely of colour, and then re-introduced the blue of the Madonna's gown, followed by the red, and finally the browns and greens of the landscape and other features. He talked about the hidden geometry within the picture and how the modern eye misses it because it's not trained to see it. The digital painting functioned well within the framework of Matt's discourse, namely demystification of the artistic process and disavowal of the genius concept. Not that Renaissance Revolutions was totally given over to modern T.V. gadgetry; there were Lord Clark Civilization like moments such as Matt striding through a large room bedecked by tapestries at Urbino. Could Matt be the new Lord Clark? These glimpses of an outmoded T.V. arts style made me nostalgic for a paternal BBC unsavaged by the dogs of deregulation. Matt was Clark-like too as he waited for the curatorial staff at the Kunsthistorisches Museum to display the painting without its frame. Matthew waited patiently, completely undaunted by the institutional presence of art history- he never lets other art historians violate the special relationship he forges between himself and his viewer.

 

By contrast, Howard Jacobson lets the odd expert stray in front of the cameras where they tend to imitate the proverbial rabbit caught in the headlights. His contribution to the highly subjective The Genius of British Art series, aired on Channel 4 last Sunday, focused on Victorian nude painting, with the likes of William Etty, Alma-Tadema, Lord Leighton and other unedifying Victorians on display. I don't know if this was intentional but the act of retrieving a nude painting from storage had the air of a porn merchant bringing his wares from the back of the shop. In a bid to rescue the Victorian nude from its fate of languishing in obscurity, Howard took us down memory lane (or should that be memory lain) to Manchester Art Gallery. Subjects such as Hylas and the Nymphs evoked incidents in Howard's lovelife- a tryst on a boat in some park in some northern city. Halfway through the programme I was treading water. Claims about moral complexity and moral ambiguity in Victorian erotic art aside, most of this art is simply unimaginative and third rate academic tripe. Only a handful of curators would champion this kind of art. I mean, even the Keeper of the Royal Collection seemed non-plussed when asked to comment on some picture in the Queen's collection. More telling was the treatment of the Etty paintings at York where, apparently, they're not on display. I visited the Gallery recently and was denied that pleasure, which I attributed to refurbishment. Determined to help his artist-hero, Jacobson enlisted the help of a young curator who is campaigning to get Etty's works on display in a climate of complete indifference to this painter. It seems to be having some effect since York is planning a large exhibition of Etty's works between June 2011 and Jan 2012, "the first comprehensive reassessment of his art for more than 50 years." Doubtless Booker-prize winner and champion of this provincial Titian will be cheering them on!

Museum Cuts

On the day of the mad axe man, Museums Journal on the cuts in the cultural sector.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has announced cuts of 15% for all national museums.

Renaissance in the Regions

It will also cut the Renaissance in the Regions programme by 15% over the same period, to £45.567m in 2011, £44.725m in 2012, £44.050m in 2013 and £43.914m in 2014.

Arts Council England

Arts Council England (ACE) will receive an overall cut of 29.6%, from £387.728m in 2011 to £349.392m 2014, a total, in real terms, of nearly £350m. The DCMS has asked that ACE does not cut funding to its regularly funded organisations by more than 15%. Arts minister Ed Vaizey said the DCMS would also ask that ACE reduce its administration costs by 50%.

It is widely expected that ACE will inherit many of the functions of the Museums Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), including Renaissance, when the MLA is wound up in April 2012. Vaizey said a decision on this had not yet been made, but the body that inherits the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council's functions would receive a separate administration budget.

Local authorities

The chancellor George Osborne announced that local authority budgets would be reduced by 7.1% each year for the next four years. Museums are discretionary services for local authorities.

National museums

The government will maintain free entry to national museums, and capital projects at the British Museum, Tate Modern and British Library will go ahead.

The government will also allow national museums to access their reserves to a total of £143m over four years.

English Heritage

Funding to English Heritage is to be cut by 32% over four years, from £114.742m in 2011 to £96.962m in 2014.

Do the words cultural vandalism come to mind?

Comment here and here from the Guardian.

Dealing with Canaletto

 

 

In a review of the current Canaletto and His Rivals exhibition at the National Gallery, Brian Sewell spills the beans that the curator of the show, Charles Beddington, is a dealer and that "the provenance of one painting includes the line "with Charles Beddington Ltd, from whom purchased by the present owner 2006". Here's the whole section:

There is perhaps some general point in an exhibition of works by Canaletto and his overlapping rivals, but to demonstrate it thoroughly requires more than the paltry 55 on view in Trafalgar Square. With primacy given to Canaletto and Guardi, less familiar painters are given short shrift, yet it is these who need greater exposure and discussion, and the vexed question of the varying degrees of authenticity in paintings by these popular and expensive painters (particularly Canaletto) is not touched on at all. As some very grand paintings from public or impeccable collections are included, some very beautiful, some scintillating in atmosphere and detail, it seems odd to have borrowed a number that are dry, dull and open to question; it is odder still that any scholar-curator should have selected paintings recently on the market and only briefly in their present private ownership. Long used to the wiles of the art trade as I am, I sense the scratching of art dealers' backs, for Charles Beddington, the curator in question, is himself such a dealer and quite open about it — the provenance of one painting includes the line "with Charles Beddington Ltd, from whom purchased by the present owner 2006".

Should we be concerned? Sewell certainly thinks so.

Should the National Gallery allow a working dealer to select and catalogue an exhibition of paintings by artists whose work is his stock in trade? As for his unenlightening scholarship — surely that is easily matched by any jobbing art historian, even the permanent curators of the National Gallery? Is it churlish of me to wonder what fee and expenses he has been paid? Dealers should, of course, be encouraged to mount exhibitions in their own premises (for then we all know where we stand), and they should be consulted when thought to have particular knowledge, but for the National Gallery to surrender its exhibition rooms for a dealer to use as he wills, seems a wretched and dangerous precedent.

Intrigued, I googled Charles Beddington and found out that he joined Christie's old master division from the Courtauld, now owns a private gallery, Charles Beddington Ltd, and is a member of the Fine Art Fund Group. The objectives of the funds are: to capitalise on its art market expertise; build long-term capital growth for Investors; provide diversification to a client's investment portfolio. Hardly the language that curators speak, is it?

I agree with Sewell that it would be a pity if this exhibition set a "wretched and dangerous precedent." Mind you, the public exhibition has always brushed up against the free market. Back in the 18^th century, some complained that the public salon at the Louvre was a "picture shop." Nearer our own time, do you really think Poussin's Sacraments (one of which is to be auctioned at Christie's in December) has not been ogled by some prospective buyer during their tenure at the N.G.? Though in that case it's more likely to be a museum than a private individual. My money's on the Washington N.G.

 

The NG doesn't seem too concerned about Beddington's link with the art market, which should give cause for concern in itself. I dare say Mr Sewell will have more to say about this in due course, namely on the theme of how the public museum is not a sales room, like in this illustration- Christie's in the 19^th century.

The History Man

 

I've always thought that art historians are uncomfortable with history, and historians are uneasy about visual art.

However, David Starkey, presenting the first of a promising series aired on Channel 4 last Sunday: 'The Genius of British Art', seemed to be meeting art history halfway. Opening the programme, the frosty historian broke into a smile as he reminisced on his old history don, Geoffrey Elton, who never lectured with visual aids. Starkey himself was more liberal in his use of art; he trotted out a whole range of English portraits from the time of Raphael up to the Warhol prints of Elizabeth II and other modern royals. Given his enthusiasm for visual art fostered by visits to museums in North England in his formative years, it's surprising that Starkey didn't become an art historian.

As Starkey reminded us, every lecturer is a "performer manqué" at heart, and Elton's party piece was to draw a codpiece on a schematic drawing of Henry VIII, his only concession to the image as a teaching aid. Following in the footsteps of his mentor, Starkey gave us an entertaining programme- shades of the performer manqué returning- as he popped up under a Roman arch to underline the use of such structures in Van Dyck's 'Equestrian Portrait of Charles I'; or as he materialized in San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome to make connections between the grandeur of Julius II and the ambitions of Henry VIII.

Though I enjoyed the show, I was sceptical of such connections as comparing modern portraits of Princes William and Harry with the 17^th century cavaliers of Van Dyck. I also didn't buy the links between Julius and Henry, which seemed too contrived to me. Such speculative parallels seemed as schematic as the drawing of the Tudor monarch mentioned above. I could have looked for more stylistic analysis too. Starkey must know Erna Auerbach's Tudor Artists whose preface states: "This study in the history of art is founded on a combination of two methods: the examination of original documents and the comparison of artistic styles." Still, Starkey is a history man- and this is a set of polemical visual essays where anything goes. Speaking of another history man- the so-called History Czar- I wonder how Simon Schama would have tackled this subject?

This sort of series is just as much about the presenter as the art, so it'll be interesting to see how the other talking heads compare to Starkey. Lined up are curator and cultural historian Gus-Casely Hayford, novelist Howard Jacobsen, historian and former museum director Sir Roy Strong, T.V. presenter Janet-Street Porter and newscaster Jon Snow.

Every Painter Paints Himself

From time to time I receive notifications from fellow bloggers about new, interesting sites. I usually just link to these sites, but I'm going to get in the habit of flagging them up more in short posts.

Every Painter Paints Himself. A professional site with a clever theme.

Excellent galleries of images; well written essays, viewable on the site or downloadable in PDF format.

A brilliant resource that deserves more attention. For example, try this section on renaissance faces.

Maintained by Simon Abrahams, an independent art historian, and others. A welcome addition to the art blogosphere which definitely gets the AHT's seal of approval.