Laura Knight, the 20th-century artist

 

Knight, Portrait of Ethel Bartlett

Laura Knight celebrates what she paints, which is what makes this show inspiring. Yet celebrations would be nothing without a fearsome talent for likenesses. From her very earliest work she shows a gift for figure drawing, and for capturing facial expressions, something that is a feature of her work throughout her long career. Apart from a few minor exceptions, Knight painted who she wanted to paint and captured something about them, something about their character.

Portrait of Major Atherley

Much is made in the exhibition of her hiring professional models to be able to paint the female nude, but more significant, I think, is that she paints the female body in such an affirmative way. The bodies in her paintings are consciously beautiful. The few depictions of males are  excellent as well, but for some reason, she depicts only female nudes, not male. 

It appears that whatever she turned her attention to resulted in fascinating images. Her images of ballet dancers are remarkable, especially those of dancers adjusting their shoe, or preparing to appear. The contrast between the mundane dressing room, and the iconic, mythic images conveyed by the dancer, is thrillingly evident:

The Ballet shoe

Almost annoyingly, whatever Knight depicts turns out to be beautiful. There appears to be no ugliness in her work. Nor does she only paint the young; some of her gypsy portraits are of a mother and daughter, and both the young and old faces are treated with respect, even reverence. Even her wartime images (with the exception of the sketches of the Nuremberg Trials) seem to be presenting an affirmative view. No wonder she was employed as a war artist.

 Perhaps not surprisingly, the best images from the war are representations of work. Her images of men and women at work are fascinating, because the viewer seems to become engaged in the work process as Knight clearly was when painting it. She later described her horror as the weapons of destruction being assembled, but no revulsion is visible in the images of women making armaments.

 

Ruby Loftus, 1943

There are downsides to Knight’s work. Landscapes are often depicted in garishly bright colours. Textiles, however, have a tactile feel to them and are so good, they at times almost take up the entire canvas. Given her fame, she was able to paint any subject she chose, and her images of Afro-Americans in segregated hospitals, and Travellers at the Epsom Derby, today raise a suspicion of condescension.

If we are all famous for fifteen minutes, Knight will be famous for one image – perversely, not included in this show. It is, of course, her self-portrait with nude. As an indication of the different standards in operation today, the painting is today titled with the name of the model, rather than just “nude”. But the nude is facing away; we don’t see her face. It doesn’t matter who she is. The image conveys worldliness, sophistication, triumph of the artist. Here is my world, she is stating defiantly. I’m a success. I can paint, and I can take my place in the 20th-century as an equal of anybody.

River Kings, by Cat Jarman

 

The thesis of this book is simple. The Vikings travelled East as well as West. A single bead found near Repton is evidence of how far the Vikings travelled, or at least, how far that bead travelled. It might have been brought by a Viking from the East; although, of course, it might have been traded several times. Fancy genetic techniques enable us to determine that many of the Viking burials were of people born over a very wide range. 

That’s it, more or less. The novelty, if you haven’t been reading popular archaeology recently, is Jarman’s thoroughness at researching some of the Eastern finds and burials. That doesn’t prevent the book being, paradoxically, somewhat English-focused at the same time as drawing attention to what might have been happening in the East. There is a strange insistence on sources from Britain as being in some way more important than sources from elsewhere. Describing the use of rivers by the Vikings, the author states (page 80), discussing the Vikings in France: 

The written sources describe in detail how the Seine was utilised … by an invading Viking army.

After several sentences describing this source, which describes how the Viking attackers set three of their own ships alight to burn down a bridge, she then complains about the lack of evidence from England: 

So this isn’t news: we know the rivers were vital for the movement of the Vikings across many parts of Europe. What we don’t know are the actual details … the knowledge of how this took place. [p80]

Well, you had a detailed description a few sentences ago!

But the biggest problem is the poor writing. Unfortunately, although Jarman has an interesting case to make, the argument is drowned by problems with the writing. It’s a shame that this book, designed as a popular history book that summarises much recent research on the Vikings in an entertaining way, should be marred by annoying lapses in the writing that could easily have been corrected by a copy-editor. I don’t mind the author’s slightly patronising manner: “we know that …” (she means that she knows, but we, the readers, presumably, don’t). Three pages of adulatory reviews at the start of the book state that “her written style is wonderful”; but the loose writing is anything but.

In her enthusiasm to present the argument, Jarman emphasizes too much.  I’ve lost count of the number of times something is “notable”, “significant”, “critical” or “important”. For example, “When trying to understand exotic objects and their appearance at sites like this, there is one place above all that is critical to understand.” (P114). Other examples (several per page) of words that could be eliminated are:

·        Spelt out explicitly in historical records [p49]

·        Especially useful [p62]

·        We have seriously underestimated [p62]

·        It is crucial to understand … [p113]

·        In this particular case [p108]

·        This highly important idea has received too little attention until now [p93]

·        Before we picture them as entirely pragmatic [p92]

Unfortunately, once you have started writing like this, everything must become important or significant, otherwise it is liable to be ignored. The text becomes a jumble of intensifiers. 

There are also many examples of cliches:

·        The bustle of modern life [p80]

·        In this particular year… [p92]

·        Another thought that strikes me [p89]

·        First and foremost [p88]

·        Unfortunately, from this particular period, those [sources] are few and far between. [p80] … Maps in this part of the world are few and far between [p81]

 

Three examples of redundant words from a single page:

·        We are not entirely sure when the map was created [p82]

·        This latter technique is particularly exciting [p82]

·        What is particularly useful about this map [p82]

Around eight pages are devoted to the ring mentioned above. Incidentally, the ring is illustrated in the paperback edition, but there is no mention in the text that there is any illustration. The illustration is useful because it shows that the Arabic writing is on the stone rather than on the setting of the ring. Jarman describes at length the exotic nature of the ring, partly because of the Arabic writing on it. The idea that something foreign might be exotic appears so astounding to the author that it has to be explained at length – and formulated as a question: 

What did it mean to wear a faceted carnelian bead imported from a distant and exotic part of the world, as opposed to a cheap glass one that had been made locally? [p118]

I would guess the same as today. But Jarman labours the point for another paragraph: “Their value … was recognised by those who used them and those who saw them, in the same way that today we might recognise luxury brands and status symbols.” I think we knew this already. 

Jarman, in her enthusiasm, moves from supposition to certainty. Why were these exotic items fashionable? 

Their desirability may have lain purely with the objects themselves for their artistic value or they may have symbolised … a link to the places abroad. [p118] 

But a page later, this “may have” has become a certainty: 

Clearly, these displays of wealth and luxury became irresistible for those with social ambitions. For many, in the later period, they also became emblems of experience and new influences. [p119]

So, an interesting idea, and potentially a good writer; it just needs some solid revision to the text.

Normal People: the TV version

 

Having watched all six hours or so of the TV series, I feel qualified to judge Normal People. Since Ms Rooney is credited as co-author of the TV version, I can assume she is responsible for the considerable amplification and clarification from the original book.

To save you, reader, the trouble of seeing all the episodes, I can summarise the plot straightaway: boy meets girl, and after a few tribulations, they live happily ever after. There are a few variations on that theme, but essentially, this is Jane Austen for the 21st century. Connell appears to be stand-offish, but after a few errors in etiquette (inviting the wrong girl to the School Prom) he gets it right in the end, by threatening fisticuffs at the evil man (Marianne’s brother).

Marianne, the heroine, suffers abuse at home, and so can only relate to males who dominate and hurt her. She falls for Connell, who despite being the most popular boy in the school, and then a wildly popular student at Trinity College Dublin, and despite being admired for his creative writing,  is incapable of revealing his feelings and becomes deeply depressed. There is not the slightest justification for this depression. I am told this can happen in real life, but in fiction, as a reader you expect a justification for the actions of the main characters, and I spent much of the series shouting at Connell to wake up out of his torpor and to save Marianne from her horrific family. Perhaps that the plot device – so we can all shout at the screen. Marianne is much more simple: once Mr Right comes along and stands up to her abusive brother, she is saved, and it seems she can abandon all the S/M she was engaged with earlier. 

Except, of course, that this is the 21st century and women are no longer saved; Connell wins a scholarship on a creative writing course in New York, and Marianne stays in Dublin. We feel, however, that the couple will remain in love and will be reunited, even if physically apart. After all, they spent six hours in each other’s company during the TV series.

 All that remains is to note the other fashionable references. Connell discovers his future by becoming a writer. In the book we hear nothing about his writing; in the TV show, Marianne says something about him revealing himself. Clearly this is confessional creative writing, although despite getting great praise for his writing, Connell still has to be rewarded by an educational body that grants him a scholarship for him to feel validated. This is not creative writing to make money, it should be clear; this is revealing your innermost thoughts, the kind of thing we stop doing after we are fourteen.

Bury St Edmunds

 

The centre of Bury through the Norman Tower of the Abbey

1.     The important things about Bury St Edmunds are, I think, three: It had a big abbey. Somewhat like Abingdon or Lewes, the abbey ruins seem to cast a rather gloomy spell over the place. The abbey gardens are utterly out of keeping with what the abbey represented – no gardens would be better, like Castle Acre.

2.      Secondly, not much happened in Bury  after the Dissolution - apart from a huge sugar beet processing factory that can be seen from anywhere in the town. There are some excellent 18th- and 19th-century houses, but they are tucked away in back streets, where you would hardly notice them.

3.      Thirdly, Bury has a rather grand station, with two towers, but the station doesn't seem to have caused a great transformation in the town. There are no direct trains to London (and probably never were). That should make Bury more interesting (because the lifeblood doesn’t drain away during the day) or perhaps less interesting (because wealthy people wouldn't want to live there). The railway, like the busy A11 bypass, don't seem to have impacted much on the town. The station is about 20 minutes’ walk from the centre, which perhaps prevents it seeming to be a hub of activity.

My hunch is that the relative lack of any development in the centre during the past two hundred years (apart from a shopping centre, which is somewhat self-contained and does not impact on the historic buildings) explains why, unlike other towns of a similar size, Bury does not appear to have big Victorian villas. Even the public buildings, such as the Corn Exchange, are of a single storey and fit within the scale of the existing buildings around. There is plenty of small-scale terrace housing, and the usual modern estates round the edge, but large houses seem to be no later than early 19th-century.

The centre of Bury, with a curious early illuminated road sign

What Bury has gained in the five or so years since we last visited is some independent shops. Unlike, say, Cambridge, where rents are so high that there is very little opportunity in the centre for innovative independent shops, the very fact of Bury’s being slightly off the beaten track means that startups can survive. There was a great new artisan cheese shop, run by a man who told me Bury was much friendlier than the town in Sussex where he used to live, and an excellent chocolate shop where they make their own chocolates.

Perhaps what I remember most as characteristic of Bury, it seems, is rows of very undistinguished small terraced housing – you see a lot of it between the train station and the centre. The restaurant Pea Porridge, claimed to be the town’s finest, is actually three tiny terraced houses pulled together, in a diminutive square (actually a triangle); you don’t eat in one big room, but in tiny rooms as if you are eating in someone’s dining room. Since the abbey ended, Bury lacks any kind of grandeur.

How does it compare with, say, Saffron Waldon, which has a population less than half? Both are small-scale market towns, attracting people from the area around, but almost closing down by four in the afternoon on a Saturday. Both seem to possess the feeling there is nothing to compete with. Nonetheless, Saffron Walden, with a population of little more than a third of Bury, manages to have thriving history societies, a much more interesting museum – and an independent bookshop. To be fair to Bury, the museum featured not one but two artists with local associations: Sybil Andrews and Mary Beale -  but nobody with the reputation of Edward Bawden. But for me, the biggest mystery is why does Bury have not one but three good restaurants, when Saffron Walden has none?

Beale, Mary, portrait of Lady Margaret Twisden, c1699

Like any town, Bury has its less exciting aspects. A drab cathedral that feels largely modern in the worst sense: was built or rebuilt in the last hundred years, but refuses to engage with any modern movements in architecture. It displays money in the new tower but no genuine taste. We couldn’t even get inside St Mary’s Church, which for the second time we visited was closed,  when the website (and the sign beside the door) said it was open to visit. But I shouldn’t complain; five years ago, this was a place that would never have had its own independent cheese shop. Signs of life, after all. 

The Saffron Walden Museum

 

The museum building itself is a treasure. Built in 1834, by an unknown architect, it must be one of the earliest purpose-built museums; Pevsner calls it Neo-Tudor, but it is a rather curious individual style. Inside is a lovely example of a great local museum; Saffron Walden, of course, being the kind of place where interesting people lived, the museum as a consequence is full of stories of locals, such as Henry Winstanley, who in the 18th century designed the first Eddystone Lighthouse, and was swept away with it in a storm. 

The items shown here are by no means the most important items in the collection, but I don’t think that is the point. As you might expect from a local museum, the objects are often small and fragmentary, none more so than a wonderful alabaster carving from the 15th century, broken in pieces during the Reformation, most likely, and hidden in a cupboard.

There is a lovely Renaissance fireplace designed perhaps by Gabriel Harvey, with details of what look like the labours of the months.

Upstairs there is a costume gallery, with a man’s waistcoat from around 1830, from a lovely silk brocade. Then the usual samplers, children’s dresses, and other memorabilia. What makes this exceptional for a local collection is that some of the early archaeological finds have been reconstructed, such as a wooden chamber in which graves were discovered.

As usual, the china is more memorable for its naivety than for any artistic talent, but enjoyable nonetheless. The museum has a quarterly newsletter, available to take away at the shop, with objects of the month, stories behind the exhibits, and more. There is a rather fond mention of the stuffed elephant that used to be the centrepiece of the collection, and a sad photo of the elephant being carried away on its last journey, who knows where.

Overall, one of the best local museums I have visited. You leave with a feeling that behind those front doors in the historic town there might be any number of historical associations waiting to be teased out. 

Stockport: a sad History

 

Stockport Covered Market, built 1860 by Stockport Corporation

You would think an officially commissioned history of the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport to be a fairly dry affair. Nothing of the kind: this book (Stockport, A History, by Peter Arrowsmith, published 1997 by Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council) is compelling, describing in well-researched detail the stunning rise and equally stunning fall of one of Britain’s major industrial centres. First textiles, specifically silk, then cotton, then hats, all of which industries have now disappeared, apart from a few insignificant traces: a hat museum that never seems to open, and some sad-looking enormous mill buildings that loom over the city centre. The most visible image of Stockport is the viaduct  (1839-40) carrying the railway over the River Mersey, more than a mile long.

But for me the real tragedy that is exemplified by the history of Stockport is not unique to one town. It is the story of the growth and decline of local government during the last 200 years or so. Reading a historical work makes it clear what we might not even notice, locked as we are in the present day: how much has changed in the past 50 or so years. It sounds melodramatic, but there has been a fundamental shift in the relationship between individuals and capitalism. An entire infrastructure, which was slowly built up to act on behalf of the local residents, has been dismantled, in favour of financial exploitation; there is no other way to describe it.

Take the supply of water, for example. As Stockport grew, its need for water inevitably became greater. Peter Marsland, owner of Park Mills, sank an artesian well on his land and obtained the legal right to supply Stockport with water. His (private) water works dated from 1827. “Customers who wanted to bring water into their homes or business premises were expected to lay their own pipes from Marsland’s mains.” The Stockport Waterworks typically provided water for around two hours a day, “and even then the service was liable to be intermittent … in the 1840s many still depended on public pumps and water carriers. By the end of 1852 as many as 40,000 of the town’s 56,000 inhabitants were receiving the company’s supply.”

Various improvements took place in subsequent years, but “in 1867, dissatisfied with the quality, quantity and high price of the new company’s supply, [Stockport Corporation] applied to Parliament for powers to establish its own waterworks.” Eventually, they gained those powers, and in 1912, the Corporation built a new reservoir in the Kinder Valley. For the next hundred or so years, the residents of Stockport could take the supply of water for granted; then privatization took place. How a monopoly utility could be privatized has never been satisfactorily explained to me: the goals of a private corporation and a public utility are fundamentally at odds. As we all know, in the last 20 years, the water companies have invested inadequately in improvements to the water supply, while at the same time paying themselves enormous dividends.

To emphasise the change in attitude, just this week, the council in Warrington was reported to be at risk of losing a £52m investment – in an energy company, Together Energy:

Taxpayers in a northern England town are facing a financial hit of up to £52m should energy supplier Together Energy collapse, after the local Labour-controlled council bought a 50 per cent stake in the troubled company. (FT, 7 Jan 2022)

The article continues to explain that Warrington only made this investment “to offset cuts in their grants by central government during the austerity years” – in other words, not by choice. The idea of local government acting in the interests of local people disappeared years ago. Andy Carter, Tory MP for Warrington, commented: “The story about how Warrington council’s investment in Together Energy is one of the best examples of what councils should not be doing.”

The Stockport story is not just about water, not just about utilities (the Corporation at one time owned electricity and gas production facilities), not just about public parks, libraries, museums and swimming pools, but reveals a whole mindset that we have lost. Stockport Covered Market (shown above), and the area around it, was built by Stockport Corporation. It could never have been built today. And nobody would contemplate publishing Stockport: A History today. That's very sad. 

Normal People

 

Normal People, we are repeatedly told, is a bestseller: one of those books to be found piled many copies deep on the front table in every bookshop I went into at Christmas. The Kindle edition of the book states that the title is “Normal People: one million copies sold”, which I found remarkable, given the quality of the writing, until it was pointed out by my more worldly-wise daughter that there is also a highly successful TV series, and people are most likely to know the book from watching the TV version. Perhaps a million people watched it, and then some bought the book.  

Having read the book, and watched the first episode of the TV 12-part series, it makes sense to think of the book as the book to accompany the TV series, rather than the other way round. The story makes for great TV, since the book is almost entirely dialogue; any attempts by the author to provide description are pretty ham-fisted and make it clear she is best sticking to speech. There is little attempt to describe a locality, a season, or any background other than in the most sketchy way. Ms Rooney won’t win any prizes for the following: 

The cherries hang around them gleaming like so many spectral planets. The air is light with scent, green like chlorophyll. They sell chlorophyll chewing gum in Europe, Connell has noticed. Overhead the sky is velvet-blue. Stars flicker and cast no light.  (p.185)

1.    Even if the vast sales of the book were to an extent caused by the TV series, there must be something distinctive about the book. I can think of a few reasons that make it stand out:

• We all love a love story, and this is the Mills and Boon style of writing: young clever woman falls in love with the cleverest boy in the class, who scores the winning goal in the school football match (switched to Irish football in the TV version). After many vicissitudes, and scholarships, they end up truly in love, albeit to be separated for a year, an odd twist.
• The narrative replicates Pride and Prejudice (and how we all love that plot): Connell is Darcy, well-bred, but in one respect behaving very strangely: by not recognizing his sexual partner in public, he places her in an impossible position. His mother points this out to him, but he refuses to acknowledge his appalling behaviour. Again, the TV version makes this far more explicit. 
• Relationships as a form of dependency: Marianne gets involved in sado-masochistic relationships, and even without any physical violence, at the end she states “She was in his power, he had chosen to redeem her, she was redeemed”. Perhaps, the suggestion is, that we are either dominant or dependent in any relationship – hardly a me-too message.
• Up to date: lots of mentions of texting, references to posting nude photos on your phone, and so on. The recency (even if the novel is set in 2013-2014) is entertaining.
• Obsession with self: you could describe this novel, not as “me too”, but as “me me”. The two main characters in the novel, Connell and Marianne, are both preoccupied largely with themselves – even at the expense of a would-be partner staring them in the face. Both are academically gifted, gaining scholarships at Trinity College, Dublin – but what are they studying? You could be forgiven for not noticing. There is a mention of a dissertation she is writing on “Irish carceral institutions after independence”, but no mention of this subject anywhere else in the book. This is a novel of emotions only: no outside world exists.  Marianne is criticised for being “self-absorbed” when she talks about the political situation in Israel – Connell defends her, but there is no mention of Israel anywhere else in the book. It seems pretty clear that Marianne and Connell do not discuss the political situation in their conversations, even if Connell states it is “fairly important” (p173). If you compare this novel with, say, Balzac, you would notice that Balzac’s characters interact with the world far more than with themselves.  Perhaps the lack of interest in the world around is what the readers of Normal People like: an escape. 

But there remain several things that didn't impress me:

• Characters in the novel as obsessed with being “normal”: “What they had together was normal, a good relationship. The life they were living was the right life.” (p175) Is it likely that such highly educated characters would have such a simplistic idea of what is normal? Of course, the title “normal people” is ironic, but does anyone really care about being normal?
• The simplistic view of good and evil: “She tries to be a good person. But deep down she knows she is a bad person, corrupted, wrong” (p246). “He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her.” (p273) Such statements are unbelievable and glib. Mercifully, they are of course eliminated in the TV version, which removes any self-analysis, greatly improving the work in the process.
• The endless dialogue, punctuated only by the elementary trick of some activity, such as eating an ice cream, getting dressed, or washing up.
• Connell seems to find a solution to his life through creative writing, but we never find out what he writes about. I somehow think that what he writes will be more navel gazing. Creative writing as the answer to life’s problems! By the end of the novel, neither Connell nor Marianne has ever done anything other than attended funded courses. You could write a sequel, but I don’t think many readers would be interested. Connell and Marianne have a baby, perhaps? It seems to unlikely that you realise how confined a space is the world of this novel: almost like an American high-school movie. 

A comparison with the Hollywood high-school genre is perhaps apt. Characters in high-school movies such as Booksmart learn to overcome social pressures to conform, and succeed in forming what for Hollywood at least are "normal" relationships (traditionally boy-girl, nowadays slightly expanded to include same-sex relationships, but the principle remains the same). Perhaps that's what the "normal" in Normal People means. 

Suzanne Valadon and the male gaze

It’s intriguing how gender seems to redefine critical attitudes. Currently at the Barnes Foundation there is an exhibition of Suzanne Valadon, an exhibition that has received several favourable reviews. Quite why Valadon is praised is very revealing. The claim is that Valadon’s work views women differently to the male gaze. For example: 

Suzanne Valadon began artistic life as a model and, even before she left that career, she took up her employers’ tools and showed them how to look properly at women.

Ariella Budick, FT 11 Dec 2021

By the early 1920s, Valadon’s blazingly distinctive style had won her a steady income and a stellar reputation. Critics lauded her “masculine force” and “virile power”. She painted, one writer declared, “with an energy unheard of in a woman”. It’s hard to pin down what that gendered praise actually meant, since she eschewed the pink gauziness that some males (Renoir, say), slathered on the female body. There’s no sugariness to her nudes or marzipan in her flowers.

Ariella Budick, FT 11 Dec 2021 

Yet gendered praise seems a very apt description of the critics’ views of these paintings. Valadon is praised because she voids the male gaze ; but I can’t see, on the evidence of the images presented in the reviews, that Valadon presents an alternative view.  

Having both modelled, and painted models, Valadon offers viewers a unique re-reading of what a model is: her women do not jauntily eat breakfast outdoors in the nude, for example, but are doing a job by sitting in front of a painter. Some, perhaps, are waiting for the painter to arrive: “Blue Room” (1923) is a Matisse-like explosion of fabric, colour and flowers with, in the middle, a model prosaically puffing on a cigarette, staring off at an unseen person.

Judith Flanders, TLS, November 26, 202

The mention of Matisse is very appropriate, for I don’t see any distinction between the presentation of the female form between Matisse and Valadon. The nude above looks to me like a typical male gaze view. I’m all in favour of examining the male gaze and how it can be subverted, but on the evidence of the images shown in these reviews, I don’t think I would agree with the confidence with which these reviewers state Valadon has got beyond it. Laura Mulvey, who coined the term “male gaze” in 1975, certainly raised a way of thinking that can transform our view of visual art, but it’s rather facile simply to jump to the conclusion that because an artist is female her images therefore do not show the male gaze. Ways of seeing are not as simple to decipher as that.