There’s loads of interesting art in London right now. The Cézanne show at the Tate Modern is the kind of thing you’ll tell your grandchildren about. William Kentridge at the RA is monumental but inviting, which seems an appropriate reconciliation for an artist who manages to draw joyfully while confronting the horrors of state violence in South Africa. I could have spent three hours in there. Lucian ‘it’s nice to breed your own models’ Freud is at the National Gallery, which is important to British people because they don’t really have a great artist and feel they need one, so will settle for Freud. (Peter Schjeldahl on Freud: ‘The mood is not sadistic, exactly. Call it sadistic, approximately.’)
The real game at the National Gallery, like always, is to be had in the permanent collection where just this week some climate protestors have thrown soup (Heinz, not Campbell’s) on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. Like any art lover, I was incredibly relieved when I heard they’d gone for the sunflowers. Can you imagine if they’d attacked any a Veronese? Or Poussin’s Landscape with a Man Bitten by a Snake? Holbein’s Lady with a Squirrel? The Fra Angelico San Domenico Predella? Monet’s Saint Lazare? Orazio Gentileschi’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt? They could have tried to destroy the Mantegna grisailles. This could have been a real disaster! Luckily, they went for the sunflowers because they wanted to attack something famous, which is fine by me because fame damages paintings in ways more profound and permanent than sulphuric acid, let alone tomato soup, could ever manage.
People are now sniffing about the protest quite a lot in a ‘I don’t agree with their methods’ way. Let me tell you how I see this one. This is not about art, it’s about teens. These people are teens. Protesting in this way is for teens. Yes, granted, but crucially, the art of Van Gogh is also for teens, and if you want to be all adult about the protest then you should also grow up and stop caring about Van Gogh. Besides, blessed are the teens, for they shall inherit the earth or whatever is left of it.
(Anyway, the painting is under glass, which I gather the protestors knew beforehand. So only the frame has been damaged, and while frames are nice ultimately they’re just frames).
But!
For my money the most wonderful experience you can have in front of a painting right now in London is in Duke Street St. James, where MacConnal Mason are showing a few canvases by L S Lowry. Lowry is known for his scenes of Salford life, where colourful matchstick men walk shadowless beneath lead-white skies. Lowry is sometimes written about back-to-front, with the subject matter taking pride of place. It’s certainly important that there was a serious painter who would paint men going to the football (and it’s important that we preserve that particular canvas, which the nation is under threat of losing to some private collector). But the best two canvases at MacConnal Mason are captivating, stop-you-in-your-tracks urban landscapes. They blend a bustling, wintry delight with a more atmospheric anomie. I challenge you to look at them without thinking of Brueghel’s skaters.
The best thing about them right now though, is this: with one in each window, you can’t see them in the store. You have to stand out in the grey and the cold and look inward. You can even bring a pint over from the Chequer’s pub and stand out with it. Have a pint and a cigarette and really take your time. It’s great to be standing outdoors in the cold looking at a cold, urban painting. Bring a friend. Bring four, and afterwards go to Maison Française across the road for a whole gourmet rotisserie chicken with chips and salad, which will cost you £14 each split five ways. Then go back to the pub and grab another pint, before going back to the Lowry. They bring the shutters down at about 4:30pm, after which you can’t see the paintings any more.
I think they should show more paintings like this. If you’re in London you have until Friday to check them out.
J