Jamini Roy: BBC stuck in anti-colonialism
I have been listening to an interesting show, From Bengal to Baker Street, about the Indian painter Jamini Roy. Poor old Radio 4 couldn't get beyond its anti-colonial meta-narrative... Read more...
On art.
I am a keen looker at art: not, I think, a connoisseur, nor an ignoramus. Definitely not a practitioner. I am keen on the British tradition in art, and perhaps especially the development of a civilised Modernism (as opposed to dogmatic Modernism).Page 5
Lovely WW1 (and other) horse art
The St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery in Lymington always boxes above its weight and its current show, "Home Lad Home, the War Horse story" is no exception. It isn't an enormous display, but it is very moving on several counts, and not least its beauty and - more surprisingly - its positivity. This show and the fine town which houses the gallery make a wonderful away-day. Read more...
Brutalism: Big it up for Meades
Jonathan Meades is a vital figure, a sort of a Christopher Hitchens for architecture, with a dash of Ian Nairn, but considerable wallops of Suggsy, and a undertone of some late 18th Century person (wonderful to think it might be JM's admired Burke himself). I very much approve his appreciation of Brutalism, though I would go further and wider.... Read more...
Selsey “Wave”: Hokusai homage
I am fond of the Selsey "Wave" and its three-dimensional homage to the great 19th Century print by Hokusai... Read more...
John Craxton, Stanley Spencer and the Levant
The John Craxton show at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is very lovely, and much more so than I dared expect. This is Ne0-romanticism, or the English Romantic, at its giddy, evocative best. (It is very decently reviewed by Robin Blake in the FT.) It jived surprisingly with the London visit of Stanley Spencer paintings from the Sandham Memorial Chapel. (These are well-reviewed by Adrian Hamilton in the Independent.) Read more...
Chinese and Japanese art: masters for the West
It was off to the V&A Masterpieces of Chinese Painting 700 - 1900 (ends 19 January 2014) and to the Fitzwilliam, Cambridge for The night of longing: Love and desire in Japanese prints (12 January, 2014). Yes, I was stupid enough to miss the Japanese Shunga show in the British Museum's Rooms 90/91, the very place which set me off on this quest... Read more...
If I were an illustrators’ patron ….
I have been thinking about why I have found most comics, graphic novels and animated films kind of not what I was after, and what I would love to see - but could only summon-forth from the mind and hand of someone else... Read more...
Illustrators’ prize winners are a revelation
The Association of Illustrators Awards 2013 exhibition tour features some of the most exciting artistic material I've seen this year. Read more...
Elmgreen & Dragset’s “Tomorrow”, at the V&A
I was oddly touched by Tomorrow. Its conceit was believable in both character and staging, and precisely because they are preposterous. Its central figure Norman Swann, was posited as probably queer and possibly a non-practising pederast; as glamorous, sad, modernist and - yes - socialist. Read more...
Conrad Shawcross, The Roundhouse, Greenwich, time, The Warp…
I admire all things Shawcross (William, his works, wives and offspring) and I went to see his son Conrad Shawcross's new time piece at the Roundhouse full of hope. With 24 iron pillars in a circular brick masterpiece, what could go wrong when a talented sculptor applied himself to making a clock in that splendid gloom? Read more...