ART THEFT

Meijer de Haan-self portrait 1889/90.

The BBC has a news item suggesting that ashes from a stove are being examined to see if traces of stolen paintings can be found therein. This relates to the theft of items on temporary show at the Rotterdam Kunsthal in 2012.It is thought that one of the thieves or an accomplice may have destroyed the paintings. This raises some questions.

How can you tell? Even with modern forensic methods it sounds difficult.Can you analyse ash and conclude that it comes from a 100-120 year old work by Monet, Gauguin or de Haan or a more modern painting by Freud? And if the ashes are all mixed together? I wish them luck. Find some fragments of canvas or stretcher and it will be easier. Shouldn't we also be a bit sceptical? Thieves don't usually destroy assets.it may be just a blind.

There are also questions about the value of art.In this case I personally would be most sorry to lose the de Haan-though in an auction room the somewhat poor Monet or the not particularly special Picasso might do much better.

So why de Haan? His oeuvre is small and he died in his 4Os.This stolen portrait is one of his strongest, most avant-garde works. It is a fine painting in it's own right. And it has an important place in the Pont-Aven school. It has a distinguished provenance and was one of the half dozen or so colour plates in the catalogue for Pickvance's unrepeatable show on Pont-Aven in 1966. So take it away and we have lost  a key work . It would be hard to make that case for the Monet, Picasso or Gauguin which of course you wouldn't want to lose either.Here is the link to the BBC story.

Pochades-or not

Craster Concrete IV

This is a pochade. It fits my definition of the term  because it is a small painting.In art history you particularly come across the term pochade with reference to those little panels which Seurat painted in connection with the Bathers and the Grande Jatte. Monet uses he term pochade in his letters of the 1870s and 1880s.His idea of a pochade is always a painting larger than a Seurat panel.According to John House*, Monet's pochades can measure as much as 73X92 cms in the case of the very well known painting of La Grenouillère in the National Gallery, London.Perhaps this is what Monet would have called a large pochade-he does use the term.And he also uses the term esquisse-almost interchangeably.But it jars considerably when I see someone referring to pochades by Constable-with reference to the same-size sketches for his six-footers.But this is what you find on the very inadequate entry on Wikipedia. 

No, the word is French and must relate to poche=pocket. The work is small, so it could fit in your pocket.

There is a group on Flickr devoted to pochades and there you can see works by Tadeusz Deregowski who does tiny pochades which must be about the size of a hand.He makes an individual box for each work.You can see his website here.They are really enjoyable and very freely painted.A good pochade will be small but these do not look like small paintings.

*Monet: Nature into Art"by John House;Yale,1986. See especially chapter 6.

A Poor Sense of Colour

There is something distinctly old fashioned about much  landscape photography in Britain-especially that of the amateur with more equipment than he can manage. Photographers oftene seem to be lacking in any modern sense of colour. So much of what they produce relates more to a  landscapist such as J C Dahl than to Monet or Seurat.  There is considerable gloom along with occasional flashes of something more lurid. 

One of the problems is HDR. I'm not sure that it lives up to its name in providing a High Dynamic Range. I have rarely seen an HDR  colour image which wasn't weirdly lurid. Maybe Dunstanburgh and Bamburgh should be patrolled so that anyone carrying a tripod can be turned away .

The situation is made worse by the camera magazines which serve the  male concern for technical matters and a hierarchy of cameras which fit into grades such as "prosumer" (sickening isn't it ?), professional or amateur. Beginners, perhaps lacking confidence go on to repeat the latest cliches of the genre. Art students are no different and many of them never grow out of it. I am sick of  photographs which show a misty milky sea floating round some rocks. There is often a pinky/blue sky to confirm that the neophyte got up at dawn. Dunstanburgh and Bamburgh should be patrolled and anyone carrying a tripod should be turned away. As Degas might have said, "Landscape photography is not a sport". Never underestimate the herd instinct.

And another thing....that ridiculous remark to the effect that, "From today painting is dead". I could replace it with a question. There are times when I am tempted to ask,"When will photography come to life?"