The Times - UK (2022-06-11)

8 saturday review Saturday June 11 2022 | the times

upwards, that long-ago moment when

some young apprentice fell to his death felt

suddenly heart-wrenchingly real.

The cathedrals, churches and chapels

that scatter our country are spiritual refu-

ges, not least because they are the reposi-

tories of some of our finest riches. Sculp-

tures that stare blind-eyed and baffling

from alien museum settings find a mean-

ingful role in the places for which they

were made. Stained glass windows glow,

their “sun-comprehending glass” (as Phi-

lip Larkin described it) forming a symbolic

visual art

Read my lips! What I have learnt

As Rachel Campbell-

Johnson steps down

as Times art critic, she

offers advice on how to

get the most out of art

‘I

am going to offer you about

the best job in Fleet Street.”

I still remember my feel-

ings — the high flutter

of excitement, the low

whump of fear — as, stand-

ing in the office of Peter

Stothard, who was then the editor of The

Times, I was given the news.

That was 20 years ago. And how right his

words proved. My time as chief art critic

has been one of marvellous adventure. A

job that began in 2002 with Tate Modern’s

landmark Matisse Picasso show has led me

— via an awful lot of looking and learning

— from revelation to revelation. I have

roved from the prehistoric to the postmod-

ern in my writing. I have met our greatest

contemporary artists, seen our most glori-

ous old masters. Moment after moment of

wonder has rolled in.

I have lain on the floor of the Sistine

Chapel and gazed dizzily upwards into

Michelangelo’s splendours. Alone with

Leonardo, I have sensed the mind of a

genius brush against me like a ghost. I’ve

spent days amid the manuscripts of

the oldest library in Christendom (St

Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of

Mount Sinai). I’ve wandered in solitude

through the Forbidden City at night. I’ve

crossed the frozen tundra on a Sami rein-

deer herder’s sledge. On my way home

from hours spent looking at Rubens, I

fainted. Adrift in a blood-rush of giddiness

and gold, I didn’t want to come back.

I expect some of you will feel that you’ve

heard quite enough from me. (Please, no

need to inform me.) It has certainly been a

hard-fought decision to move on. But

before I leave at the end of this month, here

are a few things that I’ve learnt in the

course of the past two decades.

Forget the jargon

The soul never thinks without a picture.

Aristotle’s words in De Anima remain a

touchstone across the millennia. They

haunt the whole of art history. Every im-

age, however diligently literal, dramatical-

ly experimental or wildly abstract, brings

the imagination of its maker into play. And

imagination, Einstein said, is the language

of the soul. It is definitely not the language

of art-speak. You know the sort of stuff: in-

terminable sentences inflated to bursting

point by baffling pomposities and impene-

trable jargon — and probably invented by

people to make what might otherwise

seem like a slightly fey specialism feel

more rigorously factual and snootily ex-

clusive to boot. Buy the contemporary cat-

alogue by all means. Look at the pictures.

But don’t go to the bother of reading it.

Send in the cows

“I must be quite a horrible person, but I

couldn’t care less about cows.” I remember

the woman who told me that — and spe-

cifically because at the very next moment

she was expounding the pleasures of Ho-

garth’s pictures and extolling the beauties

the skill of the glad-handing potentate is to

offer each person what feels like a private

encounter. That, too, is the gift of art.

I once visited the National Gallery with

a shrink. He lingered long and looked hard

at each Holy Family. Yet it wasn’t the bal-

anced composition or the subtle chiaro-

scuro he was studying. He didn’t much

care whether Bellini had influenced Titian

or not. He found his own conclusion.

“There’s so much projection going on

around that lot.”

If you are interested in geology, then

look at Leonardo’s rock formations. The

meteorologist will find much to fascinate

in Constable’s sketches of clouds. Don’t be

daunted. Find your own focus. Sometimes

I only know I’m looking at something that

has meaning when I can no longer see it for

the tears that are welling up in my eyes.

It’s not all about blockbusters

The National Gallery serves as “the town

man’s paradise of refreshment”, Charles

Kingsley declared. If you’ve ever braved

one of its blockbusters, you can be excused

a little scepticism. Few experiences are less

refreshing than the slow conveyor-belt

shuffle through overstuffed galleries.

Sometimes it’s better to save yourself the

entrance fee. There are lots of other places.

The Sainsbury Wing houses a collection

of early Renaissance wonders unsur-

passed outside Italy. In the V&A, there are

spots so deserted you could pitch a tent

without anyone noticing — at least, until

the smoke from your camp-fire sets off the

alarm. Corners of Tate Britain are so quiet

you can hear your heartbeat.

A glimpse of some celebrity loan on its

rock-band-style tour of the globe may

bring a sudden blood-rush of recognition.

But what then? In the long run we want

close friends, not lofty idols. Let the works

in our permanent collections become

faithful companions. After all, one of our

nation’s most precious gifts to us is that we

can pay a visit to our galleries at no cost.

Go to church

It was an article by a fellow art critic that

sent me off on a mission to Gloucester

cathedral. I wanted to find the sculpture —

it’s known as the Mason’s Bracket — he

had written about. Carved high on a pillar

— you could so easily miss it — it captures

the moment that a boy falls, arms out-

stretched, while an older man reaches

helplessly trying to save him. As I craned

of his “line of grace”. Something has gone

terribly wrong when art and nature get

divorced. The two go hand in hand. The

point of art is to show us the world that we

live in more sharply, to enrich and reinvig-

orate the way we see what’s around us.

Hogarth’s line of grace is seldom more

elegantly illustrated than by the scoop of a

dairy cow’s pelvis. That — at least to me —

is among the most beautiful curves to be

found. I see it more clearly thanks to Ho-

garth. He taught me to treasure it. And, in

so doing, taught me to care even more

about cows. So yes, in case you are won-

dering, I do think that woman was prob-

ably “quite a horrible person”.

Art means whatever you think it means

I used to stifle swelling panic when I spot-

ted some expert across the spaces of a gal-

lery. There they would stand, chin in hand,

posed in haughty contrapposto, subjecting

some canvas to their judicious scrutiny.

What could they possibly be thinking?

I was back in the classroom, the kid at the

next desk scribbling away while I sucked at

my pencil and went blank. Now I assume

they are pondering lunch. Will they go for

the chicken and smashed avo sandwich or

the hummus and chipotle wrap?

Don’t worry about what you are

“meant” to be seeing. Go with your gut.

There’s no right or wrong way of respond-

ing. Schopenhauer said we should treat a

work of art like a prince: let it speak to us

first. That makes a good starting point, but

Painting with Damien Hirst

Dallying with Dali at Frieze

Hanging at

the Courtauld