Art Review : Gauguin : Maker of Myth (Tate Modern 14/1/11)

"Gauguin : Maker of Myth" which recently closed at Tate Modern was apparently the Tate's most popular exhibition ever, which underlines Gauguin's resonance with the British public. The reasons for his visual appeal are immediately apparent - his exotic themes, his big bold colours and senuous lines, paintings which are mysterious yet accessible. Yet part of the appeal is also Gauguin the man : the stockbroker who took up painting, who quarrelled with Vincent van Gogh and then set sail forever to live and paint surrounded by scantily-clad Tahitian beauties in his South Sea Island paradise.

Yet the story of Gauguin the man is in part one of his most careful artistic creations, part-truth and part self-mythologising, a complement to his work on canvas. The object of this magnificently conceived and curated exhibition is to demonstrate the extent to which the paintings can only be understood in the context of Gauguin's self-projection, and that his life is an integral part of his art.

Gauguin's early works are unremarkable - a talented impressionist, closely mimicking the syle of his mentor Camille Pissarro. The stock-market crash of 1882 persuaded him to take to painting full-time, but his circumstances declined rapidly and he moved from Paris to Rouen to reduce his living expenses. Shortly after, his Danish wife Mette returned to her family in Copenhagen and he was free to follow his artistic inclinations.

Vegetation Tropicale
by Paul Gaugin (1887)
National Gallery of Scotland



Autumn in Glencairn
by James Paterson (1887)
National Gallery of Scotland

Gauguin liked to portray himself a savage, part-Inca. In actual fact he was born in Paris but brought up in Paru to where his father travelled in exile following the revolutions of 1848. In 1887 he sailed to Panama and Martinique where he had his first close experience of native life in the French overseas colonies. But his paintings at this time are unremarkable, demonstrably Impressionist in origin, they display the flat perspectives and broad patches of colour of naturalists like Bastien-Lepage and his followers, such as the Glasgow Boys.



Le Pardon de Pont-Aven
by Emile Bernard (1888)
Private Collection



Vision of the Sermon
(Jacob wrestling with the Angel)
By Paul Guguin (1888)
National Gallery of Scotland

 It is not until he returns to Brittany in 1888 that his work transforms. He starts to work with Emile Bernard, and his style transforms under his influence. Compare Gauguin's work to the left with Vegetation Tropicale above, carried out the year before, and with Emile Bernard's work opposite. Bernard had been a student of decorative art, and his theories of Cloisonnism (bold shapes divided by dark outlines) were already well develloped when he started to work with Gauguin. As Bernard also experimented with religious symbolism in his works, his influence on Gauguin's mature style seems very apparent to me, and if there is one shortcoming in this exhibition it is that this thread of influence is underrecognised (This idea is developed at length on the Emile Bernard wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Bernard .) It seems to want Gauguin's genius to come wholly from within him which is not the case.

In 1891, Gauguin set sail to Tahiti for the first time, by when he had met Stéphane Malarmé and become heavily imbued with Symbolist ideology. Where this exhibition excels is in its juxtaposition of Gauguin's writings and paintings, which clearly demonstrates the extent to which he viewed his output as a Gesamtkunstwerk. Motifs, such as Ondine the swimming nymph or Oviri the savage, are sketched, printed, sculpted and reproduced in paintings. Typically, Gauguin supplies an allusive or teasing title for his paintings, often in Tahitian, hinting at the meaning of the whole.

To take an example, his painting Te Nave Nave Fanua contains a motif of what appears to be a naked maiden plucking a flower. Closer examination shows a lizard whispering in her ear - the title means "The Delightful Land" and the painting can thus be interpreted as a representation of the Fall of Eve. The exhibition shows how is motif is repeated in prints, watercolours, always with attendant lizard, and finally in his most significant literary work, Noa Noa, his travelogue with etchings which tells of his time in Tahiti combined with folk tales and the work of the Symbolist poet Charles Morice.

Which leads me to a couple of pedantic points. In the otherwise splendid catalogue, Noa Noa is translated as "Fragrant." (Catalogue Pg 37). However, wikipedia lists Noa as meaning "free" in Hawaiian, or "free from tapu or restraint" in Maori. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noa . The translation of Noa Noa as "fragrance" comes from Gauguin himself - but he is both unreliable narrator and translator. It would be in character if his intention was to emphasise the "free" aspect of Noa, but chose to diguise it, to place a poetic slant on it. On another pedantic point, the Norwegian tankard shown is not a "Tine" (catalogue Pg 93), which is a Norwegian carved ornamental box with a handle.

Nevermore O Tahiti
by Paul Gauguin (1897)
The Courtauld Gallery London

However, the great pleasure of this show, and a reason for its success, is that one can examine the main themes in detail, but there are sufficient great works which can be enjoyed simply for themselves. Look into the face of the girl in Nevermore O Tahiti. Is she sad, is she sulking? What are the women saying - is the girl listening? And what is that clunky badly-drawn raven doing with the ominous Poe reference in the title? Add the colours of the girl, the sumtuous curved line of the small of her back and paterns of the pareo - a complex, beguiling, beautiful masterpiece - and there are many more.

You can enjoy his exquisite late works, explore the man, his myth, his art at whatever level you want. And if you want to avoid overcrowding at Art Galleries, then curators will have to strive to ensure that shows aren't as good as this one.

Art Review : Pioneering Painters - The Glasgow Boys (Royal Academy 31/12/10)

The Glasgow Boys was not a formal movement like the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, but a number of loose groups of artists based around Glasgow from around 1880 to 1890, and who exhibited at the Glasgow Institute Annual exhibition in 1885 and in London at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1890 rather than at the Royal Academy of Scotland in Edinburgh. This splendid exhibition, which has transferred from the Kelvingove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow to the Royal Academy in London, tracks their influences and development from 1880 through to their final absorbtion into the artistic establishment at the turn of the century.

Their style was not homogenous - however, there were certain themes which predominated. They were realists, rejecting the classical academic tradition. The earlier Boys were strongly influenced by the Barbizon School, painting poor countryfolk and rural scenes en plein air before finishing their works in the studio. Jules Bastien-Lepage was their exemplar, his naturalism having proved popular and widely exhibited in Scotland. From him, they absorbed the looser brushwork and flat tonalities that are typical of their early work. This is exemplified in James Guthrie's early work "A Funeral Service in the Highlands", where the grey funereal tones remind one of the similarly Barbizon-influenced Hague School.



To Pastures New by James Guthrie
 Aberdeen Art Gallery

 However the grey tones were not typical. Bastien-Lepage taught that one had to immerse oneself in the communities that you wished to paint, and this proved extremely influential. Guthrie, Walton and Crawhall painted together at Crowland in Lincolnshire where the attraction was the consistency of the light rather than the rapidly changing skyscapes of the West Coast. "To Pastures New" by Guthrie captures the openness of the Lincolnshire sky as the deftly drawn young gooseherd concentrates hard whilst leading her flock across the wide picture frame. But surprisingly, this scene was only sketched in Lincolnshire and worked up during the winter at Guthrie's studio in Helensburgh.

In 1883,Guthrie, Walton and Crawhall went for the summer to Cockurnspath in Berwickshire, which was to be come a regular favorite of the Boys. They would be joined over the next few years by George Henry, EA Walton, Arthur Melville and Alexander Roche amongst others. In this period, Henry and Walton's work - following Bastien-Lepage- becomes flatter, more concerned with composition and the effects of light, whilst Guthrie's "Schoolmates" reminds me of the more traditional compostions of Millet.

Whilst Barbizon was a major influence, several of the Glasgow Boys, including Melville, Roche, Lavery and Dow, spent some summers in nearby Grez-sur-Loing, which had the advantages of being cheaper and easier to get to. A large international artists community was based there, and William Stott of Oldham in particular was an influence on those who painted there. John Lavery spent the summers of 1883 and 1884 there, but when he returned to Glasgow he saw Guthrie's "To Pastures New" which influenced him to remain in Scotland, where he brought his skills increasingly to document the emerging Glaswegian middle classes and in particular the Glasgow International Exhibition of 1888.

The Druids : Bringing in the Mistletoe
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

Meanwhile, other influences was brought to bear. Japanese woodblock prints were in vogue, popularised by Whistler and familiar in Glasgow through the influential Art dealer Alexander Reid. George Henry and EA Hornel were most deeply influenced by Japanese art, and, from their studio in Kirkudbright in Galloway,  their openness to an eclectic range of influences resulted in the most dramatic - though least typical - work of the Glasgow Boys. "The Druids - Bringing in the Mistletoe" combines naturalism in the heads of the Galloway Cows, pictish and celtic iconography in the robes of the druids, and the symbolism of Gustaphe Moreau.


Henry and Hornel travelled to Japan in 1893. By this time the work of the Glasgow Boys had been successfully exhibited in London and then at the Munich Glaspalast. From then on, success came easily for the leading Boys. Guthrie and Lavery became established as society portraitists. Crawhall became the leading exponent of gouache on linen (to my mind "Horse and Cart with Lady" is unequalled). Arthur Melville's watercolours have a richness of colour and fluidity of technique which is breathtaking. But by this time the Boys had progressed beyond their origins. Each had their own individual style which would lead some of them to success in the 20th Century.

Art Review : Turner and the Masters - Tate Britain (September 2009 - January 2010)

JMW Turner was a combative character, who frequently set himself up in comparison to both contemporary artists and established Great Masters. He famously demanded in his will that two of his best works were to be given to the new National Gallery, on the proviso that they were permanently hung between two paintings by his great predecessor as an interpreter of landscapes, the Frenchman Claude Lorraine. This splendidly instructive exhibition looks at how Turner learnt from, and attempted to supersede, his illustrious forebears.

The comparisons with Claude are direct, and brilliantly illustrated in the exhibition. Turner knew Claude’s “Landscape with Jacob, Laban and his Daughters” from the collection of his patron, the Earl of Egremont. In protest at the conservative policies of the British Institution who encouraged artists to model themselves directly on the painters of the past, Turner submitted “Appulia in Search of Appulus Learns from the Swain the Cause of his Metamorphosis”, which copied the Claude almost exactly except for the central characters, who point to a shepherd who was turned into a tree for copying the dancing of the nymphs of Pan. Untalented mimicry has its pitfalls.

Turner saw “Seaport at Sunset” (left) by Claude in the Louvre in 1821. In 1828 in Rome, he fashioned his response, “Regulus” (right), which stuck closely to the mirror image of Claude’s composition but which transformed the central narrative. Regulus was a captured Roman General who had his eyelids removed and then pointed at the sun. Turner replaces Claude’s warm glow of sunset with a blaze of brilliant yellow light which dazzles all who gaze at it. The genteel seaport has been transformed into a place of searing drama.

Likewise, Turner engaged directly with Dutch masters of the seascape such as Jacob van Ruisdael and Jan van de Velde. In another brilliant pendant, Turner transforms Van de Velde’s “A Rising Gale”, a clear and precise depiction of a storm-tossed boat, into “Dutch Boats in a Gale: Fishermen Endeavouring to Put their Fish on Board”. The composition is similar, but Turner’s looser brushwork and delicate highlights of the breaking waves give the painting a much greater sense of movement.

However, it is equally illuminating to look at examples where Turner tried and failed to emulate his great predecessors. Titian may be considered a natural point of departure, as his use of colour and his late brushwork have many similarities with Turner. Yet when one looks at Venus and Adonis, whose head is turned away from the viewer and whose shoulder is obscuring the face of Venus, one can only wonder if there is a more poorly composed painting in the canon. Similarly, an attempt to paint the Holy Family offers a vision of an oversized baby somehow suspended in mid-air. In fact, one has to conclude that Turner is a poor figurative painter. For me, his one such success is Jessica, peering out of her Venetian window – a painting which was pilloried for its overuse of yellow when it was first produced.

Turner’s relationship with his contemporary David Wilkie is illustrative. Wilkie’s painting “Village Politicians” had been the success of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1806. This piece was a directly based on genre pieces by Dutch artists of the late 17th Century such as David Teniers the Younger. Turner’s immediate instinct was to try to do better, and in 1807 he presented “A Country Blacksmith disputing upon the Price of Iron, and the Price Charged to the Butcher for shoeing his Poney” at the Summer Exhibition. Yet despite its fine execution, the painting is a failure. The charm of Wilkie - and of Teniers - is in the detail, in the personalities represented and in the incidental vignettes scattered throughout their pieces. Turner’s blacksmith needs the overlong title to explain the topic under discussion, and none of the people are recognisable as characters. Wilkie exhibited “The Blind Fiddler” the same year, where every character from the dull-eyed nursing mother to the expansive man clicking his fingers to amuse the child has a reality to them which Turner lacked. Wilkie won this contest hands down.

This fine exhibition brings its paintings together with intelligence and clarity, setting out a compelling story of how Turner defined himself in relation to others; yet ultimately Turner’s distinct vision is very much his own. By examining the similarities between Turner and other artists, the ultimate revelation is the extent to which Turner’s later vision of light and haze and water was actually a transformation from inside out of the gentle landscapes of Claude. It is to him that he constantly returns, to his classical forms and elegant compositions, even if they are but shadows in a miasma of blinding light. His final exhibited works in 1850 once again echo, however indistinctly, the format of Claude’s seaport works.

Turner wasn’t being arrogant when he wrote his will, he was acknowledging a debt.

Art Review : Turner and Venice - Tate Britain (October 2003 - January 2004)

Curators must normally face a difficult task in balancing how they choose to develop the main intellectual themes of an exhibition with the cost and availability of the artefacts that they wish to bring together. However, such is the scale of the Turner bequest, the problem that Ian Warrell faced when setting up the Turner and Venice exhibition at the Tate Britain in 2003 must have been to decide what to omit.

A visit to the recent Turner and the Masters exhibition at Tate Britain (see http://roderick-random.blogspot.com/2009/11/jmw-turner-was-combative-character-who.html ) has sent me back to the Catalogue of Turner and Venice, which had lain unopened on my bookshelves for the past six years. I remember my impressions at the time: a compendious overview of the sketches, watercolours and exhibited works which arose as a result of Turner’s three short visits to Venice. The sketches were of marginal interest, the oil paintings were, of course, superb, but the highlight for me was the revelatory display of exquisite watercolours.

The problem at the gallery though was one of scale. 185 exhibits can challenge the stamina of the most dedicated aficionado, and I do remember flagging towards the end as I fought through the crowds.

No such problem with the catalogue, which examines Turner’s response to Venice in even greater detail – one has the time and space to peruse it at leisure, and it is well worthy of detailed examination. Turner, who lived his life by the Thames, was always drawn to water, so it is natural that Venice was included in his first major tour of Italy in 1819 (he had briefly crossed the Alps in 1802), although he only spent five days in Venice out of a six month trip. The impact was not immediate, as it was not until 1833 that he spent a week there and thereafter until 1846 he sent at least one view of Venice in all but two years to the annual exhibition at the Royal Academy. His third and final visit was in 1840 when he stayed from the 20th August to the 3rd September.

The catalogue is comprehensive. It sets out the historical context – Venice, after years of decline was broken by Napoleon and has now become a client of Austria, the wealth from trade long-since dissipated, and with it the glories of Titian, Tintoretto and Bellini. Canaletto and his followers had painted both Venice and London in precise detail and, by the 1820’s, with Byron’s romanticised vision of the decayed glories of Venice in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage riding high in the public consciousness, British artist such as Clarkson Stanfield, William Etty and Richard Parkes Bonington had started to respond in turn. By 1837, Thackery was able to complain that he was “weary of gondolas, striped shirts…and too many white palaces standing before dark purple skies”. Turner employed a similar viewpoint to that of Stansfield for their respective paintings of the Doge’s Palace both exhibited in 1833. But whereas Stansfield architectural lines echo the precise draughtsmanship of Canaletto, Turner’s smaller painting is focussed on the loose jumble of boats and the hazed reflections of buildings on the water.

However, the main body of the Exhibition focuses on the sketches and watercolours produced during Turner’s visits, and how some of these scenes were turned into full oil-paintings for exhibition. In the case of Turner’s 1840 visit, we are taken down the Grand Canal and across the Giudeca, stopping to look at how Turner responded to each scene in turn. The watercolours are superb, the watery light being subtly conveyed by delicate washes and a few deft flicks of the brush, many having the detail added in pencil or in pen dipped in watercolour.

It gives an insight into Turner’s creative process, obsessively sketching detail and capturing the effects of light in the watercolours for later reworking in oils in the Studio. For example, an 1833 pencil sketch of the Bacino with some hasty blue, brown and white highlights added, is believed to have become “Venice from the Canale della Giudeca, Chiesa di S. Maria della Salute etc”, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1840. Even the great later works where the buildings of Venice barely emerge from a haze of mist and light are firmly rooted in Turner’s sketches and watercolours, and these connections are clearly set out in this illuminating exhibition and its exceptional catalogue.

Book Review : Hogarth : A Life and a World by Jenny Uglow (Faber & Faber 1997)

One cannot dissociate Hogarth from 18th Century London - he was its quintessential chronicler, his paintings and prints encapsulating the teeming bustle, the filth and grime, the political chicanery, the lies, hypocrisy and sexual adventure that made up this brash and busy age. Therefore it is appropriate that Jenny Uglow, in this splendid, compendious biography, should choose to focus on the historical context as much as on Hogarth's life, since, fascinating though it is, without an understanding of the politics, of Walpole and Fox, Bute and Pitt, and of the characters, such as Mother Douglas the Bawd, or Jenny Tofts who gave birth to rabbits, one cannot fully appreciate the true depths of Hogarth's wonderful "progresses" and other satirical paintings and prints.



London itself looms large as a character, Hogarth's Smithfield with its fair and sidestreets being readily recognisable today. Covent Garden was largely disreputable, but Leicester Fields was a prestigious address for a young artist and engraver to set up shop. Further afield, the leafy villages of Chiswick and Islington provide respite for Hogarth and his characters.



Hogarth himself was proud and prickly, yet at the same time a tireless worker for the public good. He never had any children in his close and loving marriage with his wife Jane, and much of his paternal instincts were channelled towards Thomas Coram's Foundling Hospital. He painted for it, was a committee member and took an active interest in the children. At the same time, he founded Britain's first Academy of Fine Art and was involved in the Society of Artists.



Yet it is as a private individual that Uglow's portrait is most vivid. Hogarth appears as a kind man who loved his wife and cared for animals, yet popular and clubbable, with a keen sense of humour and an appreciation for life. The description of the "peregrination" around North Kent that he and some friends undertook is delightful, full of drinking, practical jokes, singing and general foolery - immediately recognisable to any young man who has gone on a short holiday with friends today. As he aged and his health diminished, however, he became more and more temperamental. The last years of his life was overshadowed by his disappointment with the reception of his painting Sigismunda which he couldn't move on from, and by his vicious feud with Wilkes and Churchill. This decline is sensitively documented by Uglow.



However, the greatest part of this book is given over to discussion of Hogarth's work - his portraits, his history paintings but especially his progresses and satirical engravings. All his published engravings are reproduced (albeit in a format which could have been larger) and described in detail. It is this detail which is telling. When looking at the first print of "The Harlot's Progress" a 21st c. viewer can see the fresh young Moll Hackabout arriving in London to be greeted by the bawd Mother Needham and overseen by a somewhat lascivious-looking character with his hand thrust deep into his pockets. But when one understands that this gentlemen is Colonel Francis Charteris - convicted rapist, fraudster, libertine and political associate of Walpole - the character takes on new dimensions.


Hogarth did not waste strokes of his burin. Virtually all the detail in his prints has some significance - some lost in the mists of time but much of it decodable by Hogarth's contemporaries and by the Art Historians of today. It is Jenny Uglow's ability to bring this detail alive that makes this such a good book. Hogarth's London is brimming with life and controversy, with political debate and satire, and with friendships and feuds. It really is an exceptionally good book.

Book Review : Hang-Ups : Essays on Painting (Mostly) by Simon Schama (BBC Books 2004)

There must have been a point in Simon Schama's life when he stopped being a good writer and became a great one. His voice is now so familiar, his vision of Art so personal with that characteristic touch of informality which is necessary to prick the pomposity of the art critic's puff. Yet it was not always so. In this collection of essays from throughout Schama's writing career, one notices that, whilst the early writing is good, his voice has developed with growing fame and confidence.

Schama writes passionately, and his tastes are diverse. He seems equally at home speaking of the Masters of the Dutch Golden period or of modern abstract artists. But some stand out. His lecture at the New York Metropolitan Museum 0f Art in 1999 demonstrates a deep love of Keifer and Schama's unfailing ability to bring difficult, complex art to life.

Keifer can be a difficult artist for the layman to penetrate - his constant re-explorations of his roots, his Germanness and his relationship to German soil and forests and history. Schama acknowledges this. "For Keifer, the Holzweg is, as it is often understood in vernacular German, a dead-end, and instead of the slaughter being aesthetically euphemized in truncated trees and the inevitable raven, the dead-end is defiled by drops of blood dripped onto the begrimed snow". However, in rebutting a fellow critic who refers Keifer's "humour", Schama notes that "I don't exactly see him as the stand-up comedian of late 20th century art, a Teutonic Seinfeld."

This is the essence of Schama, his ability to puncture the pretentiousness that surrounds the Art world whilst simultaneously respecting and writing lucidly and vibrantly on it. He can penetrate the seriousness with which art tries to respond to the society around it, comprehend and summarise it, throw in the most perfectly balanced phrase - "the dead-end is defiled by drops of blood dripped onto the begrimed snow" is close to perfection - then puncture the seriousness by a reference to a "Teutonic Seinfeld."

It is difficult to summarise this diverse collection of journalism and lectures, there is no unifying theme, except to note that Schama's enthusiasm for fine art shines through consistently. There are no negative pieces included until the final article - a review of the 1492 exhibition in Washington. This commemoration of the discovery of America by Columbus manages to do so with only one exhibit out of 569 directly relating to the explorer - the rest cover 1492 in a multitude of cultures throughout the world, but excluding all unpleasantness such as the expulsion of the Moors from Spain which happened in the same year. Schama deplores this pusillanimous revisionism, a year cast adrift from its cultural moorings in a desperate desire to be all things to all men whilst offending no-one.

It is all that Schama is not - vague, generalist, unopinionated. For, as he is primarily a historian, Schama has rooted his art criticism directly into the culture of the painter. His vision is almost that of a gifted amateur, enthusiastic but learned of the context. And with that one great advantage - he can write.

Art Review : Hogarth (Tate Britain 16/02/07)

It is a pity that Hogarth did not anticipate the 21st Century blockbuster exhibition (and if he had, he would have probably captured the peering, jostling crowds to perfection). The pleasure in Hogarth's magnificent satirical paintings and prints lies in the detail, and, judging by the numbers thronging this magnificently-collated overview of Hogarth's work, he strikes a chord with many people. Unfortunately, such is their enthusiasm to see the original prints in detail that it can be difficult to get close to the works themselves without resorting to some elbow-work.

All the great series are here - The Rake's Progress, Marriage a la Mode, the Four Stages of Cruelty, alongside, in certain cases, the paintings upon which the engravings were based. Hogarth has a busy style, cramming the frames with colour and detail. Yet the revelation for me in this exhibition was his other paintings, the Conversation Pieces, the Historical works and especially the Portraits. I hadn't realised to what an extent that he was one of the great portraitists of the 18th Century, a worthy precursor to Reynolds, Gainsborough and Ramsey.

Take his portrait of George Arnold, for example. He is a solid man, radiating straightforwardness and honesty. His eyes are acute, with a trace of a smile around a set mouth. He seems an approachable man, someone with whom you can do business. Most of Hogarth's sitters were of a similar background: the successful middle classes rather than the aristocracy.

Justifiably famous as well is his portrait of apothecary Daniel Graham's children. Not only do the children come alive as lively individuals, the portrait itself is full of entrancing detail - notably the eager-faced tabby poised to pounce on the caged goldfinch (not a bullfinch as it erroneously states in the otherwise splendid catalogue. Neither is the young lady on stage in "The Indian Emperor" Lady Catherine Lennox (cat pg 108), but Lady Caroline Lennox, future wife of Henry Fox). Maybe this is a portent of the tenuousness of our hold on life, since, as the winged-figure of a golden, scythe-wielding Death above the baby Thomas symbolises, Thomas was dead before the painting was finished.

But above all, Hogarth was a connoisseur of London life in all its varieties. His great series depict the decline and fall of the gullible and foolish, drawn in by the cheats and charlatans of 18th Century London. Innocent and fair Moll Hackabout arrives in London looking for her cousin. She cannot find her, but Mother Needham is ready to offer assistance. Moll has brought a goose for her cousin, but she is the goose herself - as the notorious rake and rapist Colonel Charteris looks on, hand jigging in pocket.

One of Hogarth's great gifts is his accessibility. His prints are rich in symbolism, but one doesn't have to be an Art Historian or to read the detailed notes by each painting to see by the merchant peering at the marriage contract whilst the noblemen points to his family tree that the Marriage a la Mode was not made in heaven. The young couple look on disengagedly - he takes a pinch of snuff whilst admiring himself in the mirror, she glumly plays with her ring whilst their dogs (always a good signifier for Hogarth) show no interest in each other. Soon, she is having an affair with the Lawyer Silvertongue, he has succumbed to the pox - all described in minutest of detail. As the Countess stretches contentedly in the second scene, the dog has sniffed out the ladies undergarment in the pocket of the Viscount.

The teeming, dirty, hypocritical energy of 18th Century London - the Gin craze, the South-Sea Bubble, the threat from the Jacobites and from the French, the fall of Walpole and the rise of Pitt - all is captured by Hogarth and translated into deadly satire with the finest execution. In a way, for a man whose success was founded upon his ability to describe the London crowd in all its variegated glory, it is entirely appropriate that the modern crowds should now be paying their respects in turn to Hogarth.

Art Review : Holbein in England (Tate Britain 5/01/07)

To all intents and purposes, English Art began with Holbein. What preceded him may not have been without merit, but the names of the artists are seldom recorded. The renaissance of painting in Italy and Northern Europe had left these shores surprisingly untouched. And neither did Holbein kickstart British Art - with the exception of the sublime Nicolas Hilliard, there is scarcely an English-born painter of note until Hogarth in the 18th Century.

Holbein was born in Augsburg in 1497/8, the son of a talented portraitist, but developed his art in Basel where he had moved in 1515. He first travelled to England in 1526, where he stayed for two years. He returned to Basel, but was driven out by religious unrest in 1531, and came back to England where he stayed until his death in 1543.

Holbein's reputation today is largely based on his portraiture, for which he was firmly-bedded within the Northern European tradition. His archetypes were Jan van Eyck and Memling, his peers Durer, Cranach and Matsys. He shares with them the ability to capture an uncanny likeness in oils - he is less a caricaturist than Cranach or Matsys, his goal is a perfectly idealised likeness for his patrons.

His portrait of Henry VIII c1537 is iconic. Henry's high forehead and narrow eyes indicate intelligence and cunning, his tight-set lips denote determination and Henry's broad frame and thick neck radiate power. He looks every inch the Renaissance monarch. The head doesn't quite fit the body. It was probably the result of a single preparatory sketch - Henry was not a good sitter, which makes the final result all the more remarkable.

Yet the paintings of the monarch and his spouses do not show Holbein at his best - they are too formal, too constrained by the ever-present threat of Henry's ire. The portrait of Sir Richard Southwell, however, describes a very real person. Southwell was one of Cromwell's functionaries involved in the administration of the proceeds from the dissolution of the monasteries - the silken sheen of his coat suggests that his was a lucrative position. Southwell's face, however, is recognisable as that of a distinct personality. The eyes are somewhat dead, but beneath the broad nose is a lively, expressive mouth surrounded by a stubbly, dimpled, slightly receding chin. His neck is disfigured by tubercular marks. This is not an engaging or flattering portrait - but one cannot help feeling that it is uncannily true to life.

Contrast this with the portrait of the elderly Dr John Chambers, aged (according to the portrait) 88. Holbein has somehow managed to capture the texture of his aged flesh: it is dry and papery, its youthful sheen gone. His eyes are looking towards a final goal, his mouth set and resigned. It is a wonderful depiction of ageing, and the contemplation of death.

This is a compendious exhibition, displaying not only the well-known portraits by Holbein, but also many of his preparatory sketches, and also the portraits by his school. It is a pity that the catalogue is light on background and heavy on somewhat arid detail, as the exhibition itself manages to be consistently illuminating and fascinating about someone of whom the available documentary evidence is limited. It is unlikely that such a collection of Holbein's works will be seen together again (The Ambassadors is too frail to travel across London), so enjoy it - if it is not too late - while you can.

Art Review : Velazquez - National Gallery (29/12/06)

The National Gallery's Spring and Autumn Blockbuster exhibitions have become a staple feature of British cultural life - Vermeer, Rembrandt, Titian, Raphael, Caravaggio all seem to tumble one after the other, each one vying with the others for the critics' superlatives. And rightly so - the National Gallery's exhibitions curators should be congratulated on the extraordinary array of masterpieces they have enticed to these shores.

Not least this time round as Velazquez gets the full treatment - short of tempting the Prado to part with Las Meninas (which isn't going to happen) it is difficult to think of a finer, more balanced selection of Velazquez' oeuvre, highlighting in detail his development as an artist and the variety of his work. Surprisingly, the National Gallery is home to more of Velazquez' work than anywhere other than the Prado, partly due to the thanks of the Spanish nation to the Duke of Wellington for ridding Spain of Napoleonic troops. This, plus some generous loans from the Prado, has allowed such an exceptional collection to be brought together.

It is extraordinary to think that "An Old Woman Cooking Eggs" was painted by a 19-year old. The draughtsmanship is exquisite, the coalescing egg white in the frying pan extraordinary. The only hint at the inexperience of the artist is the spatial arrangement of the characters - the boy appears to be on a slightly different plane to the old woman, he is not fully integrated with the picture as a whole. Yet the cooking implements are certainly recognisable, and it is one of the joys of this exhibition that one can recognise the same implements reappear from picture to picture in Velazquez' early bodegones. The same boy reappears as well in "The Water-Seller of Seville", a slightly later work. It is rightly described as the high-point of Velazquez' early work, the rendition of the light glinting in the glass of water and the wetness on the surface of the pitcher being nothing short of remarkable.

With such an extraordinary talent, it is only natural that Velazquez gets invited to the Spanish court under the protection of the chief minister, fellow-native of Seville Gaspar de Guzman, Count-Duke of Olivares, and it is as a painter of the Spanish court of Philip IV that Velazquez spent the rest of his life, barring two trips to Italy. Like many great artists, his style becomes looser with age as his confidence in his understanding of how the eye relates to the paint develops. When one looks at "Philip IV of Spain in Brown and Silver", it is only when you examine up close that you realise that his richly-patterned suit is decorated with the loosest of floral motifs. However, compare that with "Infanta Maria Teresa" and you will see the most delicate lacework and satin ribboning described in a few bold strokes of the brush. The result is, of course, exquisite.

Court portraiture is not always the most spontaneous of genres, but Velazquez transcends through sheer virtuosity. His paintings of the Royal children are both beautiful and moving, as these little dolls, largely doomed through their Habsburg genetic inheritance, are displayed in their finery for the international marriage market. You can sense the fragility of the Infante Felipe Prospero, or of Baltasar Carlos on horseback as he executes an improbable levade. The final portrait of Philip IV, painted in 1656-7, makes no secret of the sorrows of Philip's reign in the pain and weariness of his eyes.

And in addition to the court paintings, there are Velazquez' religious and mythic paintings largely influenced by his trips to Italy. Visitors to the National Gallery are familiar with the callipygian charms of the Rokeby Venus, but not so with Mars with handlebar moustache, oversized helmet and sagging flesh - a ridiculous warmonger - or with a priggish Apollo informing Vulcan - eyes flashing fire - that his wife has been caught in flagrante.

All in all, an extraordinary exhibition, supplemented by a superb audioguide and informative and well-written catalogue. The only challenge for the National Gallery now is to somehow try to beat it.

Art Review : Sargent / Sorolla (Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid 22/11/06)

John Singer Sargent I know well, mainly as a result of the monograph exhibition at the Tate several years ago. Joaquim Sorolla I don't know at all. Despite their different backgrounds, the artists knew each other well and the parallels between them, brought out in this interesting exhibition (of which, due to the time constraints of the day job, I only saw the first part, missing the continuation at the Fundacion Caja Madrid nearby).

Sargent was heavily influenced by Velasquez, and it was whilst travelling to Spain in 1879 to study him that Sargent first met Sorolla. At that time, Sargent was still experimenting with light and form and heavily influenced by the Impressionists that he had met in Paris. This can be seen in "The Court of Myrtles in the Alhambra". The brushwork is rapid and indistinct as Sargent tries to capture the intensity of light through the fall of sunshine and shadow on the sand-yellow palace.

Soralla chronicled the lives of the Spanish poor living around the coasts. I don't know of another artist who has so accurately caught the difference in blue of the sky and sea of the Mediterranean and of the Atlantic. He catches the lives of fishermen, of fishwives, of prostitutes on a train with a keen eye and with sympathy, and whilst the plein-air composition and loose brushwork are reminiscent of Impressionism, his biggest influences are Courbet and the Barbizon school. This style and subject matter matures, so that by the turn of the century Sorolla is producing the startling beach paintings for which he is best known. The interplay of sea, shadow and the cotton of the loose bathing robes awash with blues and pinks and whites make a wonderfully vibrant, vivid snapshot of a bygone era.

Yet Sorolla was also a portraitist of stature, and it is informative to compare his technique with Sargent. In portraits of men they are both fluid, perceptive. However, no-one can compete with Sargent when it comes to painting beautiful society women (except perhaps Tissot). One would think that such a keen perceptive eye must come from a dedicated ladies' man, but Sargent was probably homosexual.

Undoubtedly the high point of the exhibition is his portrait of Lady Agnew of Lochawe. All concentration is on the face; she is gazing directly at the viewer, her eyes languid. One eyebrow arches not so much quizzically, but ironically. She is used to being the centre of attention, to be gazed upon. Her black hair is piled up over over a long, pale face with just the faintest suggestion of down above generous but restrained red lips. Her dress of white chiffon and silk with a lilac bow is painted much more freely, allowing all focus to fall on the face. It is truly an exquisite work.

It was a pity that time didn't allow for a visit to the continuation or a purchase of the Catalogue (or indeed for more than a quick sprint round the splendid Museo-Thyssen) as this was a well-designed thoughtful exhibition. Double- or triple-headed exhibitions are in vogue currently, and they are a particularly effective way to develop perspectives on Artists which may have never come to the fore otherwise. This intelligent selection contributes to our appreciation of both.

Art Review : Rubens & Brueghel - A Working Friendship (Mauritshuis, The Hague 25/10/06)

The Mauritshuis in The Hague is a gem. The former town house of Count Johan-Morits of Nassau-Siegen, he had it built by Jacob van Campen whilst Governor of Brazil from 1636-44. It is one of the finest examples of Dutch Classicism. In the 18th Century, the Dutch Statholder, William V of Orange-Nassau, started to host his personal collection there, and in 1815 this was given to the Dutch State, forming the basis of the collection we see in the Mauritshuis today.

It is not a big collection, based almost entirely around representatives from the Dutch Golden Age, but its quality is extraordinary. Vermeer must take pride of place. Potboiler novels and dodgy film adaptations cannot detract from the beauty of the Girl with a Pearl Earring, whilst the View of Delft just shimmers. The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Tulp is one of Rembrandt's most recognisable compositions, but The Mauritshuis does small paintings better - Jan Stein kitchens, the winter scenes of Avercamp, the landscapes of the Ruisdaels.

It is much more intimate than the Rijksmuseum, and space constraints dictate that its exhibitions are small, specialised and tightly-focused. "Rubens & Brueghel - A Working Friendship" meets these criteria perfectly. It focuses on the process of collaboration between these two friends between 1598 and 1625, during which they jointly executed two dozen works. It then contrasts other collaborative ventures that each artist participated in - Rubens with Frans Snyders and Brueghel with Hans Rotterhammer, Hendrick de Clerck and Hendrick van Balen.

Perhaps surprisingly, the thesis is made that Brueghel was more often the dominant partner. The reputation of Rubens and his workshop, and the facility with which they produced masterpieces on demand, would naturally make one assume that the opposite was the case. Yet Brueghel was originally the older, more established artist, and evidence shows that in the majority of cases he set out the original framework for collaboration.

Only 29 paintings are presented, of varying quality. To my taste, the most successful compositions are those where Rubens dynamic compositional form predominates. His vision invests characters with a movement and dynamism which is lacking from the more constrained but detailed cabinet pieces constructed by Brueghel. "Mars Disarmed by Venus" and "Pan and Syrinx" are dominated by Rubensian architectonics, whereas Brueghel is the master of exquisitely-painted small-scale intimate detail.

The collaboration was born out of artistic rather than practical or commercial imperatives. Rubens' smooth brushwork contrasts sharply with the precise detailed strokes of the "Velvet" Brueghel, and so by combining both styles an effective and appealing contrast is made. Detailed inspection of the works through x-ray and infrared spectrogram has uncovered a large part of the process of collaboration - from the initial outlining of themes to the respective roles each artist took, in which order different parts were painted, how reserves were left for figures and the details, such as leaves of grass over figures, which were painted at the end of the process in order to integrate the composition.

The result is a fascinating insight into the working methods of artists in the 17th Century - of interest beyond that of simply the paintings themselves, but as an insight into life in a Flemish city in this period. The exhibition is meticulously catalogued, and if you visit the Mauritshuis simply to look at the paintings themselves then you are missing an important dimension. The way in which technology has been used to put together such a detailed picture of collaboration of individuals who lived 400 years ago is as fascinating as the paintings themselves are beautiful.

Art Review : Rebels and Martyrs - The Image of the Artist in the 19th Century (National Gallery 23/08/06)

The initial premise of this thoughtful, low-key summer exhibition is to show how the self-image of the artist evolved over the course of the 19th Century from that of the highly-skilled artisan in the days before Sir Joshua Reynolds to that of the Romantic hero, the tortured genius and rebel against society, as demonstrated through the self-portraits of the artists themselves.

The title is a slight misnomer - whilst the main focus of the exhibition is of the Artist as Outsider, cut off from decent society by his genius, his poverty or his Bohemian way of living, there is also a section on the artist as Dandy or Flaneur as typified by Fantin-Latour's exquisite portrait of Manet in top-hat and tails. Yet even this was a conscious statement, reflecting the "cult of self" written about by Baudelaire in "The Painter of Modern Life". This self-conscious pose was exemplified by artists such as Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley and Whistler.

The exhibition rescues the struggling artst from the realms of cliche, and embeds him firmly within the philosophical movements of the 19th Century. For the first time - possibly with the exception of Rembrandt - the artist is representing himself as an individual rather than as an artisan-producer of works on demand for clients. The emergence of this Romantic sense of the Individual is a key theme of the exhibition.

Whilst the works on display are seldom of the highest order, they have been selected for what they show, not how they show it. The result is often unfamiliar, and, in the case of Victor Emil Janssen's "Self-Portrait with Easel", or Paula Modersohn-Becker's "Self-Portrait on her Sixth Wedding Anniversary", exceptionally striking. Overall, they contribute to a low-key but intelligent, well-constructed exhibition.

Art Review : Modigliani and his Models (Royal Academy 30/08/06)

It is difficult to separate Modigliani the Artist from the Modigliani the Man and the myths surrounding him - the drink, the drugs and the womanising, the early death and the tragic suicide of his mistress - although in this exhibition there is no attempt to rebut the myths, as apparently it all was true.

In bringing together this collection of portraits and nudes from across Modigliani's career, one can see both his greatness and his limitations as an artist. The first work exhibited, a Brancusiesque sculpted head, redolent in overtones of African tribal art with its elongated form, pursed mouth and blank eyes, is key to understanding Modigliani's creation. To a certain extent, all his portraits were based on this archetype.

Yet on top of this mask, Modigliani overlays a personality. The portrait of Paul Guillaume reeks of an arrogant, difficult personality, whereas those of Jeanne Hebuterne, his lover, are soft and tender. A Modigliani portrait brings one closer to the subject, despite the flatness and stylisation of form.

One cannot deny the power of Modigliani's nudes. "Declining Nude on Red Couch", with the hooded eyes, her arms thrust back, her heavy breasts and her thighs twisted towards the viewer, all mean one thing - sex. These are provocative works where one cannot simply objectify the model as an art form, but must address a living, breathing, sexually-desirous being. Yet despite these works being banned as pornography in 1917, they reference earlier nudes of Titian, Corregio and Botticelli, whilst redefining the relationship between the viewer and the picture and connoisseur / voyeur, a relationship explored throughout the 20th Century by successive artists.

Modigliani's life was famously turbulent, his genius fuelled by drink and drugs, his charm and impossible good looks leading to numerous romantic entanglements. One cannot appreciate his portraits of Beatrice Hastings or Jeanne Hebuterne without realising that they were lovers - it is noteworthy that his nudes were not lovers, although whether he slept with them is a different matter. Overall this exhibition provides an excellent overview of the work of an underappreciated and much-misunderstood artist.

Art Review : Kandinsky - The Path to Abstraction (Tate Modern 18/08/06)

It is one thing to be able to enjoy an abstract work of art on its own terms - an appreciation of the interrelationship of colour, line and form which comes together to make the aesthetic whole. It is another thing entirely to be able to peel away the layers of complexity in order to understand both the theoretical and representational basis of the work - these are two separate views: perhaps those of the Art Critic and the Art Historian?

From the point of view of Art Criticism this exhibition was revelatory in two ways - firstly, and this is entirely a matter of personal taste, Kandinsky's early gouaches of scenes from Russian folklore were an eye-opener, displaying a draughtsmanship both skilled and unique. Secondly, the richness of colour and form of the Compositions and Improvisations in the period 1912-1916 was remarkable - vast explosions of colour and shape which constantly morphs before the viewer. Kandinsky was synaesthetic, visualising sounds as patches of colour. The exhibition explores the relationship between colour, music and form in the works of the Blaue Reiter period and his relationship with Schoenberg. Later works became more austere in their use of colour, and more circumscribed in form as geographical shapes increasingly predominated, losing that early vitality.

From an Art Historical perspective, the dominant theme is, as the exhibition' subtitle suggests, the path from Representationalism to Abstraction. Kandinsky was always motivated by colour - his earliest influence was Monet's Haystacks, through which he started to break down the relationship between representation, colour and form.

Once settled in Murnau in Germany, Kandinsky's dominant influences were the Fauves and Matisse, with the relationship between bold patches of colour dominating his work. As he deconstructed the representational images within his work, certain key motifs - Leitmotifs, literally, as Kandinsky was a lover of Wagner's music - emerged which recur repeatedly throughout his more abstract work.

Kandinsky had studied law in Russia with Sergei Bulgakov, joint founder in 1905 with Nikolai Berdeyev the journal Novye Puti (New Paths) which advocated a distinctly Russian approach to art, music, literature, law and which rejected materialism. This "Russian Resurrection" attracted many intellectuals, including the likes of Diaghilev and Malevich. After becoming an artist and moving to Germany, Kandinsky's art included many motifs from old Russian fairytales, songs and stories. The exhibition picks up this point and develops it both in the gallery and in the excellent catalogue. Even in his most abstract works, motifs developed years earlier can be discovered - the Blaue Reiter, for instance, is based on an icon of St George, and the horseman slaying the dragon appears in many of his works.

It is through understanding the role of colour, music and iconography in Kandinsky's work that we can open a new set of doors on our appreciation of his art. Kandinsky was a complex, intellectual figure and this intelligent, thoughtful exhibition significantly enhances our understanding of what drove him on his road to abstraction, and our appreciation of the startling images he made along the way.