{"id":1736,"date":"2018-02-09T20:37:37","date_gmt":"2018-02-09T20:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/?p=1736"},"modified":"2021-01-27T17:13:01","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T17:13:01","slug":"dick-french-on-the-town-may-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/?p=1736","title":{"rendered":"Dick French: On The Town – May 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Mr Wu was on the wireless last night. A very long programme on the World Service, but still I learned very little about him. He speaks as one heavily sedated. Talk about insclutable. He dwells in a large bunker under Berlin with 6,000 three-legged stools and some lifejackets. There was no mention of the poison beans, maybe he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sold them all. The trailer described him as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one of the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most powerful artists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. It is puzzling how an aesthetic black hole can achieve such eminence. His career is enough to make even the most sceptical of us start subscribing to conspiracy theories. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of these artistic accumulators who head things up. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot of them about. One thinks of MacFisheries, the bloke at the RA who makes animals out of coathangers and map pins. I suppose you could call it a modular approach which prevents you from making a mess… Now what can I heap up next?<\/span><\/p>\n

In the 19th century it took a long time for the French to latch on to the importance of Baudelaire. The Parnassian ideal was ascendant and accordingly it was possible to compose what was considered the highest poetry about almost nothing. Plus \u00c3\u00a7a change.<\/span><\/p>\n

Art establishments have a primordial and instinctive terror of change. When Baudelaire wrote about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153une oasis d\u00e2\u20ac\u2122horreur dans un desert d\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ennui\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he could have been describing Mr Wu and the Art World.<\/span><\/p>\n

To the National Gallery for the exhibition of Michelangelo and Sebastiano del Piombo. Sebastiano was from Cesenatico, most famous nowadays for being the birthplace and training ground of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcIl Pirata\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, Marco Pantani, still adored by the tifosi even though almost his entire career was fuelled by coke and EPO. Contrast this with Lance Armstrong who is considered a disgrace.<\/span><\/p>\n

An impressive show, although two of the most interesting pieces are already in the National Gallery. One of them, The Raising of Lazarus, is among the earliest purchases of the NG. Something I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never noticed in this painting is that a group of women close to the raising itself are holding their noses. This I learned from the wall chart, but closer inspection shows this to be untrue. They are raising their veils across the lower parts of their faces to avoid contagion. The plague, both bubonic and pneumonic, had been raging on and off for many years when this painting was being worked on and such a gesture was commonplace. Besides, after three days underground Lazarus must have been a tad smelly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sebastiano composes on the diagonal and the triangle. A striking example of his triangular approach is The Judgment of Solomon. The darkening of the central figure\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s head is extremely dramatic but this could be due to deterioration. In some of his paintings he lets the sfumato disintegrate the forms rather in the manner of Beccafumi. The black starts to creep in, especially in a painting of the Virgin and Child in which the infant resembles Charlie Drake. The Virgin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s head is also unsatisfactory \u00e2\u20ac\u201c too much face.<\/span><\/p>\n

In The Visitation the foetal St John the Baptist is said to be leaping for joy in his mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s womb during her encounter with the Virgin Mary. A difficult subject to depict. One can almost hear Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling drawling \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well I think the word difficult is awfully well chosen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are some wonderful drawings and letters in this show. Michelangelo often worked on both sides of the paper which was expensive in those days. I think he was probably a bit of a skinflint. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interesting that Michelangelo drew mostly with the hand when nowadays we are encouraged to draw mostly with the arm.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of these paintings have dramatic bits of landscape in the background in the red-tinged sky. I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take to The Lamentation. I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the expression on the Virgin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face. Those upturned eyes and the horizontal body seem insufficiently scourged with its immaculate underpants. Still I suppose this is no place for realism.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153People don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t buy pictures because they admire them, they buy them because others covet them.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Advice given to Constable, but I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t remember by whom. An Andy Warhol painting of Chairman Mao has just sold in Hong Kong for $1l million. How long can this crap persist? Warhol was once described as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153an ambulant black hole\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. And now we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got another one in Mr Wu.<\/span><\/p>\n

To the Mall to see the painter\/stainers exhibition. At the opening I met no less than the Chief Stain himself. He seemed a nice chap. Sporting his enormous bling on a chain round his neck he looked a bit like a sommelier. For once the 1st prize was worth looking at. A large, elaborate, patched-together drawing by Chris Green. Bernadette Tinko showed a small picture of a filthy brown sink, which I rather liked, while opposite Alex Rooney showed a similarly sized clean white sink. I wonder if they know each other. Cherry Pickles shows another rear view mirror piece, A487, and Peter Archer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Cliff Edge is sensitive.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Scrapyard Queen shows another of her car wrecks; as always very well done but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m always hoping she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll ring a few changes \u00e2\u20ac\u201c naked men draped over the bonnet sipping from golden cans perhaps. But I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think she takes me seriously.<\/span><\/p>\n

My friend The Sage writes from his grotto in the Yorkshire Dales sending me a copy of the Royal Academy Spring Magazine. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t imagine how he gets hold of such things. (Age Concern apparently.) He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very cross about this woman who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been appointed Professor of Sculpture at the Royal Academy. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s called Cathie Pilkington and makes the most atrocious plaster dolls which are supposed to be based on the Little Dancer by Degas. As always in this kind of work the exegesis is of more importance than the thing you have to look at. And there can be few things more unpleasant than what she makes. That such an incompetent can be put in charge of students astonishes me. But it shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really. After all they have Huge Mary in charge of painting. The Sage described them as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sugar sculptures for cake decorations\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. She also intends to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dress, drape, protect or obscure with soft coverings\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the RA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s collection of historic casts. She means to display her dolls in a way that will make them seem \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tiny but vibrant\u00e2\u20ac\u009d against lush velvet curtains. Does that mean she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to paint them black?<\/span><\/p>\n

To the John Soanes, always one of my favourite places. Unfortunately it was infested by a load of plaster body castings by Marc Quinn. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The museum is an unfinished total artwork. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re continuing the process.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Oh yeah?<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though these things are body casts he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s managed to get them out of proportion. The separate upper and lower parts don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fit together properly. Someone should grab him by the beard (I imagine he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got one) and point out shoulder to nipple, nipple to navel, naval to the foothills of the fanny \u00e2\u20ac\u201c same distance. Variations do occur of course but with the rather perfect specimen he has grabbed from behind this rule would hold. If her bum was a drug it would be Class A. Her tits too, petite.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think that great art is time travel. Emotional time travel.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d What on earth can he mean by this? \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Quinn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s works invite us to reflect on the nature and meaning of time\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. I should be used to such gnomic utterances by now but I can still be surprised and puzzled.<\/span><\/p>\n

And here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my version of the grab from behind…<\/span><\/p>\n

Dick French<\/strong>
\nThe Jackdaw May\/Jun 2017<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mr Wu was on the wireless last night. A very long programme on the World Service, but still I learned very little about him. He speaks as one heavily sedated. Talk about insclutable. He dwells in a large bunker under Berlin with 6,000 three-legged stools and some lifejackets. There was no mention of the poison […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[397,426,425,422,424,423,404,122],"class_list":["post-1736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","tag-baudelaire","tag-john-soanes","tag-marc-quinn","tag-michelangelo","tag-sebastiano","tag-sebastiano-del-piombo","tag-the-national-gallery","tag-warhol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1736"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2175,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1736\/revisions\/2175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}