… from yonder ivy-mantled tow’r The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign. DROPPING A BRICK My old friend, Sir Jack Daw, Bart, the last in a very long line of distinguished Daws – the first Sir Jack was Barted by one of King Charles’s spaniels some […]
… from yonder ivy-mantled tow’r The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign. ON YER TRIKE What joy it is to learn that the lucky folke of Folkestone have been given another Trike at last. Was it really three years ago since their last one was ridden […]
… from yonder ivy-mantled tow’r The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign. HOO RA RA If I seem to be hooting on rather too much these days about that Zoo down in Piccadilly, I do apologise, but you know how it is when you get to […]
… from yonder ivy-mantled tow’r The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign. EYE SPY Dear old Dicky Stork is still cawing away, if that’s what storks do, from his nest high on the chimney pots of Burlington House. I can hear him from here, and it’s […]
… from yonder ivy-mantled tow’r The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign. SOOKE SAYINGS I fear I may have made a mistake in always taking Little Sookey for one of Old Mother Dorment’s gaggle of goslings down on Telegraph Farm. He is certainly still there in […]
“Nothing and no one ever heard so many stupidities as a picture,” remarked Jules de Goncourt, and since he made his observation things have got worse. The insults to intelligence endured by 19th century pictures were as nothing to those routinely heaped on contemporary art. Some things never change, however. Stupidity almost always originates in vanity, and art criticism is […]
The traditionalist lament for loss of skill is a distraction. The modernists were right about that: skill on its own is not enough. The first step on the road to recovery is to reinstate the visual as the sole and proper domain of art. Once it is generally agreed that art’s impact is essentially visual, the skills to make it […]
If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise. That’s if the woods are Mortimer Forest in Herefordshire, and the surprise hasn’t by now been deliberately spoiled by tree-hugging vigilante forest rangers. Last spring, RCA graduate Philippa Lawrence took it into her pretty little head to barcode the trunks of selected young oaks in this […]
In economically choppy waters, artists without lifejackets can be forgiven for clinging to any passing spar. So when a life raft floats past flying a flag marked ‘EDUCATION’, it’s understandable that they should haul themselves aboard. But the flag is misleading. The raft isn’t headed for the familiar port of art school, where people used to receive an art education. […]
Two beavers are standing looking at the Hoover Dam and one says to the other, “I didn’t build it, but it was my design”. Cue laughter. Now picture the same gag line under a cartoon of two artists looking at an enormous public sculpture. The gag still works, but the laughter’s forced. Because while a beaver has an innate grasp […]
