Monet in Melbourne
May 7 2013
Picture: National Gallery of Victoria
A new show to open on 10th May:
Monet’s Garden is a stunning exhibition devoted to Claude Monet’s iconic garden at Giverny. Renowned as the ‘father of French Impressionism’, Monet was inspired by his direct experiences of nature, culminating in the ravishing depictions of his lily and flower gardens in the rural property at Giverny, northern France, that became his lifelong obsession. Step into the extraordinary this winter for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see these masterpieces in Australia, exclusive to Melbourne.
Tories lose plot on the arts
May 3 2013
Picture: Evening Standard
Why should governments fund the arts? Here in the UK, the newish Secretary of State for Culture, Maria Miller, recently gave a speech trying to answer that question, and made a fool of herself in the process. She also overturned a decade of enlightened Conservative thinking on the arts, and helped resuscitate the view that Tories are Philistines.
The background to Miller's speech is the forthcoming spending review, during which government departments will lobby the Treasury on why they should avoid deep cuts. Miller's solution to protect arts funding was to radically change government thinking on why government should value arts spending. Her conclusion was that henceforth the government's 'focus must be on culture’s economic impact', and that using the arts as a tool to creat economic growth was the new 'fundamental premise' that the UK's cultural sector must embrace:
[...] we must be clear about the grounds on which this argument must be had and the points that will get traction, not in the press, but with my colleagues – and with the country at large. It is with this at the fore of my mind that I come to you today and ask you to help me reframe the argument: to hammer home the value of culture to our economy.
I know this will not be to everyone’s taste – many in the arts simply want money and silence from Government – but in an age of austerity, when times are tough and money is tight, our focus must be on culture’s economic impact. To maintain the argument for continued public funding, we must make our case as a twoway street. We must demonstrate the healthy dividends that our investment continues to pay.
That’s the argument that I, as Culture Secretary, intend to make in my approach to this spending round – and I need all your help in that endeavour. In going through this period of transition, the Government wants participants – not bystanders – and I need you all toaccept this fundamental premise, and work with me to develop the argument.Unique challenges can also bring unique opportunities, a time for fresh thinking, and fresh approaches. Doing things differently does not have to mean doing things badly. So, over the coming weeks and months, I will argue that our cultural sector can bring opportunities, regeneration, jobs and growth.
Let us consider the idiocy of Miller's view that the arts must now act as a lever for economic growth by placing ourselves in the position of, say, Nicholas Penny, director of the National Gallery. Imagine you were planning the year ahead, and you had Maria Miller's new economic dictum ringing in your ears. Would you, for example:
- continue to stage fascinating scholarly exhibitions like the current Barocci show at the National Gallery, or would you instead target box office takings (and tourists) with repeated 'blockbuster' exhibitions?
- would you approve the conservation of a fragile painting by a relatively unknown artist, or prioritise the display of works by big name artists?
- would you invest in curatorial expertise and research, leading to a wider public education programme, or would you chose to build a new cafe?
It's not hard to see how establishing the wrong priority for arts funding can lead to the loss of those hard-to-value aspects of the arts that are so crucial: scholarship, preservation and above all education. Valuing the arts exclusively for their economic impact introduces inappropriate incentives into the decision making process, and will inevitably lead to a deterioration in the UK's cultural landscape.
The last Labour government made a similar mistake when it decided to value the arts for their social benefits, for their ability to make people healthier and happier, and even to cut crime. But it never worked. Taking Raphael's Madonna of the Pinks all the way to Manchester to bond with single mothers was just a waste of money (this really happened). In those days I was helping to write Conservative arts and heritage policy, and was able to make it party policy that we supported the arts because of their own intrinsic merits - art for art's sake.
As a former Conservative cheerleader for the arts, therefore, I'm profoundly disappointed in Maria Miller's ill-advised, short-termist and plain stupid speech. She should have been brave enough to continue to make the case for supporting the arts for their own sake, for valuing creativity, excellence and education. It so happens that these things do in fact have positive economic benefits - but that should never be the prime reason we support them. The arts can never be a 'commodity'.
More responses to Miller's speech can be found here from Michael Savage, here from Tom Sutcliffe, here from Alex Massie, and here from Professor Mary Beard. Nobody seems to have liked the speech, in which case Miller's cunning plan to protect the arts from funding cuts is going to fail spectacularly - no museum director or playwright worth their salt is going to ride into battle with her. The Treasury will say to the DCMS - 'you asked for your sector to make the economic case for arts funding, but they haven't. The reason you gave for continued funding must therefore be wrong. So we're going to cut it.' I'm particularly baffled by Culture Minister Ed Vaizey's role in all this - he's always been so sound on these questions before. Certainly, his previous, more enlightened view on arts funding seems to have worked well with the Treasury - in the last spending round, his arguments resulted in the arts being cut less than the police.
Update - a reader writes:
Thank you for highlighting the lamentable situation in which we find ourselves over Maria Miller and her ill-judged ‘way forward’.
Chins are hitting the floor across all sectors in the arts.
It’s very alarming, is there a chance she is on her way to another department or is this her last chance saloon ?
Maybe you know ...........
Alas not.
Another reader writes, from the art trade:
I think they had already lost the plot on the arts - viz the extension of Artist's Resale Right which didn't need to be implemented. Put Maria Miller in the same cell as Baroness Wilcox [minister in the Department of Business].
Update II - another reader adds:
The Secretary of State's speech was, indeed, very depressing. Although I can just about buy the line that she needs help in presenting her case to the Treasury who, we can assume, are even less sympathetic to the Arts than she is, one key point seemed to have dropped out of her thinking altogether. Government funding for the Arts is, by definition, a subsidy for bodies whose activities are not self-funding and where there is assumed to be cultural value to society at large from maintaining them. The "economically productive" Les Miserables presumably receives no State funding and for very obvious reasons. Am I missing something?
Update III - Neil Jeffares has a neat summary on his blog:
These are points that should have been demolished in her school debating society, not aired as government policy. But one must wonder how on earth this country – home to the National Gallery, the Wigmore Hall and the National Theatre – has permitted such blatant philisitinism to take over at the highest level.
Thanks!
May 3 2013
Google Analytics tells me that we passed a million page views last week here on AHN. So thank you very much for your support and continuing to read the site - I really appreciate it. Those of you who have been reading since we started just over two years ago get a special pat on the back.
Two conferences in London
May 2 2013
Picture: V&A
Two conferences in June in London look to be worth going to. The first, at the V&A on 14th & 15th June, is all about England and Muscovy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. The second, at the National Gallery on 21st and 22nd June, is on London and the Emergence of a European Art Market c.1780-1820.
The Landscapes of Piero della Francesca
May 2 2013
Landscapes of Piero della Francesca from The Frick Collection on FORA.tv
Video: Frick
Here's a video of a lecture by Scott Nethersole on the landscapes of Piero della Francesca.
This is still not Shakespeare (ctd.)
May 2 2013
Picture: Telegraph
Regular readers will be aware of the increasing misuse of the phoney Shakespeare portrait, above, which is now regularly appearing in newspapers, books and even pub signs. The latest case in the Daily Telegraph, however, caused me to choke on my tea and swear rudely at the computer. The image above will appear in a TV series speculating on how historical figures would look today.
The infectious spread of the phoney Bard must be evidence of how, subconsciously perhaps, people want Shakespeare to look like something out of the film Shakespeare in Love, and not the plain, bald man he really was. For the record, again, the sitter is of course Sir Thomas Overbury.
Job opportunity
May 1 2013
Picture: The Frick Collection
The Frick Collection in New York is looking for a new Chief Curator. That's a good gig. If you're interested, you need:
[...] a Ph.D. in art history with expertise in one of the Frick's primary areas of collecting, a minimum of ten years curatorial experience, and an extensive record of exhibitions and publications.
More here. Good luck!
Re-hanging Tate Britain (ctd.)
May 1 2013
Video: Tate
Tate Britain has a video of what we can expect in their new galleries. I'm very much looking forward to seeing it. The chronological hang is to be called 'The BP Walk Through British Art' (which is a bit too much, even for a free-marketeer like me).
Update - Tate Britain Director, Penelope Curtis, writes more about the re-hang in The Art Newspaper.
Sleeper Alert!
April 30 2013
Picture: Hoteldesventes.ch
Here's an interesting picture that came up for auction last week in Switzerland, catalogued as 'Follower of Titian - Portrait of Gabriel Solitus', with an old inscription 'Titianus' at top right. The estimate was CHF 4-6,000, but it sold for CHF 460,000 hammer - gently helped on its way by us here at Philip Mould & Co. With premium it would have been well over the CHF 500,000 mark, or not far off £400,000, all of which is clearly not a Follower of Titian price. So what was it?
I wouldn't be surprised if we see it surface again one day as a Titian, probably of the late 1540s/early 1550s. Titian portraits don't often come on the market, and Titian 'sleepers' are even rarer, so this picture represented quite an opportunity for picture hunters like us. We went out to see it, buoyed by some pre-sale research which made the attribution to Titian very plausible. In the flesh, however, the picture was so covered in dirt, overpaint and thick varnish that it was very hard to get a grip on the overall quality, while large areas of abrasion made one wonder what original paint was left. There were flashes of brilliance, such as the book. But much of the picture was impenetrable, hence it looking like a copy at first glance, and from the photographs. The picture therefore represented a significant risk, and as a result (and despite our very encouraging research) we didn't feel confident to take the bid any further. I'm sad we missed out on it though. My hunch is it's right.
Re-opening the Rijksmuseum (ctd.)
April 30 2013
Pictures: Anon
A reader has kindly sent in this response to the new Rijksmuseum, following my earlier post:
I went round the Rijksmuseum today. First things first, it's excellent. The rich collection is shown off well; not too cluttered and fully (read also, sensibly) labelled in English and Dutch. As other commentators have written, the placing of paintings with furniture and decorative arts makes great sense.
The queue was manageable at around 45 minutes - around half that if you book online - but unsurprisingly it was very busy inside. It's perhaps not quite as bad as the attached photos suggest, but there were certainly a lot of people when I went.
I'm not totally convinced the grey blue wall colour works with the paintings, but that may just be personal preference. The layout of the floors is also slightly confusing. I appreciate that this was dictated by the constraints of the building but it is a little annoying that the chronology of the floors jumps around: ground floor 1100-1600, first floor: 1700-1900, second floor: 1600-1700, third floor: 1900-to date. But these are minor quibbles in what is a superb museum.
Go, go go!
Our reader also adds:
One other thing I forgot to mention was that the main sponsors of the Rijksmuseum have had their company names and logos boldly commemorated in new stained glass windows at the end of the main gallery. Although it is a little incongruous, I rather liked it and if they've helped financially in what is such an obvious, not to mention expensive success then why not.
Re-hanging Tate Britain
April 30 2013
Picture: Mark Bramley/Mail
They're putting the finishing touches to the Tate Britain renovation, which opens next month. The Daily Mail was invited along to watch the re-hanging.
Analysing Van Gogh
April 30 2013
Picture: Van Gogh Museum
It's all go in Amsterdam at the moment - following the re-opening of the Rijksmuseum, tomorrow sees the re-opening of the Van Gogh museum. The museum will open with a new exhibition devoted to Van Gogh's techniques. Nina Siegal in the New York Times reports:
By using an electron microscope and X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, which reveals the parts of pigments without taking invasive samples, researchers found that early on van Gogh used perspective frames as a guide and drew on the canvas to correctly render proportions and depth of field in his landscapes. Later, as he gained mastery, he abandoned these grids. Like many artists, he reworked certain paintings repeatedly to perfect his desired effect. The most important insight was into his palette, said Nienke Bakker, curator of the show.
“We now know much more about the pigments van Gogh used and how they might’ve changed color over time,” Ms. Bakker said. “That’s crucial to our understanding of his works, and to know better how to treat them. The colors are still very vibrant, but they would have been even brighter — especially the reds. Some of the reds were much brighter or have completely disappeared since he painted them.”
Apparently The Bedroom, above, was originally painted with brighter, violet walls.
Auctioning in Dubai
April 30 2013
Video: Christie's
They applaud after every lot!
Today...
April 29 2013
...I'm filming for 'Fake or Fortune?', so I'm afraid won't be posting till later on. Got a treat of a story for you though...
If you're in Tuscany...
April 25 2013
Picture: Palazzo Strozzi
...then Andrew Johnson of Renaissance in Tuscany says a new exhibition at the Palazzo Strozzi on 'sculpture and the arts in Florence 1400-1460' is well worth a visit.
One that got away?
April 25 2013
Picture: Art Institute of Chicago
A reader alerts me to the Art Institute of Chicago's acquisition of Ludwig Richter's 1832 The Fountain at Grottaferrata, and notes that the National Gallery tried to buy it in 1989. It was eventually sold at Christie's in 2010 for £181,250 with premium, placing it affordably (for the National) at the lower end of the estimate of £150,000-250,000. It's an interesting case of how an institution's taste can evolve over time.
Andy Warhol does Van Dyck
April 25 2013
A series of photos of Andy Warhol have been published - in one of which he poses a-la Van Dyck with a sunflower. Suddenly, he's gone up in my estimation. More here.
Update - a reader writes:
Fascinating to contrast your interpretation of Warhol posing with a sunflower as homage to Van Dyck and J. Jones' interpretation of Warhol posing as homage to Van Gogh!! Does one versus the other change how one interprets the photo, and hence how one reads Warhol? Or is it both at once, as a kind of triple pun on three artists together? And was it perhaps the photographer who created the photo, with or even without Warhol realizing that Van Dyck portrayed himself with a sunflower? Would that make it a quadruple visual pun, about four artists being brought together?
Want to work in the art world?
April 25 2013
Then blimey the competition is stiff. We recently advertised in The Guardian for a front-of-house position here at the gallery - and promptly got over 400 responses. Many of the candidates were exceptional, and we had a tough time making our choice.
The Raising of the Van Dyck?
April 25 2013
Video: De Standaard
The above video is in Dutch, but the jist of it is that a recently restored Raising of the Cross (in a church in Tienen, Belgium), has been suggested to be a work from the studio of Van Dyck. It was previously thought to be a later copy. It's impossible to say much from the video, but it does look like it has a chance of being a studio replica of the undoubted original in the Church of our Lady, Kortrijk. The original is exceptionally well documeted. The Canon who commissioned the Kortrijk picture was so pleased with it that he sent Van Dyck 12 waffles in gratitude. Yum.
