Seeing in the New Year

We did not manage to do this is proper style, being in bed by around 2200. I would think that we have actually made it to midnight maybe once during the last decade but I would not like to put it any stronger than that - from which you  might rightly deduce that we are not party animals. And never been great on staying up late, unless greatly provoked.

We did however manage to bracket the arrival of the New Year with two worthy visits.

First, to the Tate Proper to take another look at the Pre-Raphaelites before they expire in a week or so - with a good number of good pictures which used to hang on the walls of the Tate disappearing back into the basement. Got to make way for something more relevant to the recipients of housing benefit living across the river you know. But I was pleased to find that the central pillared gallery which used to house old style figure sculpture has been largely cleaned out and one can now enjoy the space again, without the value added by scrap metal suspended from the ceiling or anything else of the sort. The large new side entrance, presumably now replacing the old front entrance, was quite handsome too.

The exhibition itself was crowded on this New Year's Eve, more so than on the last occasion (see 27th September last year, in the other place). A lot of French people. But the prize for bad manners went to a young English lady who parked herself in front of a large picture and then proceeded to take a long & talkative call on her mobile phone. Didn't find it necessary to retreat to a quiet corner or anything like that.

Holman Hunt remained the main man for me. Millais was very good and very polished, but did not project the tension and ambivalence of his colleague. Perhaps he seemed a bit too comfortable in this company - but probably more comfortable company in the flesh and more restful on one's walls in the oils than his colleague. But I am fairly clear that I like my paintings to be both composed and busy, with plenty of comprehensible content - so the outpourings of the subconscious from the AbEx crew do not usually qualify.

I decided that I did not much care for the white flesh & black armour of Edward Burne-Jones but that I did quite like, after all, some of the portraits by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, for example 'Monna Vanna'.

I approved of the way that some of the painters built the frame to go with the picture; a modest attempt to control the setting and appearance of the picture. And interested in the narrative content of some of the pictures, for example 'Claudio and Isabella', which made me wonder how that related to the narrative content of Schubert's songs. One can manage without being much aware of either - but I find now that I do better if I am aware - rather easier in the case of a picture than a song, being a performance in space rather than in time. One can take time out to read the narrative and then go back to the picture - which does not work very well with songs.

I could go on. But perhaps I should keep a bit of thunder back in case I manage a third visit in the next few days before it all shoves off to Washington.

Second, on New Year's Day, to Hampton Court Palace gardens. Also fairly crowded, probably because of the skating and other attractions set up on the front lawns. Bulbs just starting to poke up in the wilderness (as I saw this morning that they are in my new daffodil bed). Pushed on through to the twentieth century garden, the garden formerly known as the apprentices' garden. A quiet garden with interesting trees. Then across the great fountain garden to the privy garden, which last was looking good, as usual: a garden which seems to do good all the year round. And its fountain pond had some large carp and we wondered whether the Royal Palaces should enter into a partnership agreement with Chessington Garden Centre. The Centre would use the Palace ponds for a bit of R&R for the fish in their usually rather crowded fish tanks and would get a bit of advertising. The Palace would get free fish. Feeding rights and merchandising negotiable. Everybody would be a winner.