The majority is often wrong

The English language changes  through ignorance, there is no doubt about it and I am sure this is not an original observation. One corruption or transformation which has been going on for the last two years at least is in the misuse of the the word majority. This is a word which in its usual use refers to number. We now see it by extension being used to describe the greater part of an object as in, "the majority of the South Front...." in material on display during the restoration at Stowe.  This grates on my ear . Journalists are using it in this ignorant way. Here is an example from Oliver James," The great majority of depression is not major but what is known as minor....." So where was the sub-editor?

(September 3, 2009: I have an earlier example of the casual use of the word "majority". W Homer, in his 1964 study of Seurat writes of colours "which occupy the majority of the water area."(page 68).

Palmer forged

This illustration shows a gross forgery of a Shoreham period work by Samuel Palmer. It was made by Keating and appeared with two others in the catalogue of an exhibition presented by a prestigious London gallery in 1970. The forgeries were accompanied by quality works by English watercolourists. The gallery had no intention to deceive but was itself deceived. Once again the forger of the painting had provided a  forged provenance for the works.A provenance is nothing more than a history of where and with whom the work has spent its time since its creation.   This helps to give persuade the buyer that reputable, perhaps very reputable people, have been custodians of the work. Where the provenance is genuine one can learn something about the history of collecting.

This forgery was the work of prolific but incompetent British forger, now dead.His action was despicable. No, I dont have much sympathy for dealers and art historians, and anyone can make a mistake. In this case some doubts were raised early on. 

What concerns me is that  the forger is a traitor to any sense of solidarity which might exist among artists. He-and it is usually a he, knows that his forgery is not in the same league as  the work on which he parasitises. The forger is usually found out eventually but  meanwhile he smears the reputation of a fellow artist. Compare the fake Palmer with the real thing and you can see how crude the forgery is. It may be argued that this Palmer forgery is in the style of the artist, but it is only a crude approximation. It is a garish travesty of an artistic moment when a burgeoning sensibility (Palmer's) made a creative leap such as our forger could never have manifested.

Alan Sorell's Archaeological Illustrations

Not long ago my local Oxfam yielded up a copy of Alan Sorrell: Early Wales Re-Created which was published in 1980 by the National Museum of Wales. The name of Alan Sorrell is certainly well known to anyone over the age of fifty who has more than a passing interest in British archaeology; for it was he who was the illustrator of choice for all those Ministry of Works guidebooks which my generation brought home from visits to ancient sites. Sorrell's dramatic images showed high quality reconstructions of places as they might have looked during the time when they were inhabited. When I was young I did not appreciate these drawings but I have a different opinion now.

When I studied the book I found a postcard inserted beside Sorrell's drawing of the Roman villa at Llantwit Major.It showed another artist's reconstruction of the same site. What a contrast! Perhaps the previous owner had thought so too. Sorrell's drawing is richness itself compared to the work of the unnamed postcardist. He adopts a very high viewpoint so that you see over the villa and the surrounding countryside; lines of vision shoot off into the far distance-to vanishing points outside the image itself. High viewpoints are common with Sorrell: he deploys his perspective with panache-and of course he came from a period when art students were likely to learn it in a serious manner. His drawing is filled with incident: humans, animals and nature enrich the scene . The miserable art of the postcardist is timidity personified when compared to that of Sorell who uses as all his painterly skills to produce a living work of art. Sometimes I have thought that his work looks a little harsh but just as often I remember that he had to explain what was happening and consider how work would look when reproduced. He was also a muralist and muralists look for clarity. I would say that since Sorrell there has been something of a decline in this type of work. The illustrated leaflet for the mesolithic house at Howick was a case in point. There the drawings were more akin to something from a very rudimentary comic.It is good to see that there is a website commemorating Sorrell here . His wife, Elizabeth Tanner was also an artist of quality. Both were fortunate to study at a time when the ability to draw was valued.

The Chicago Faun

The Art Institute of Chicago - Paul Gauguin - Faun
Originally uploaded by cerdsp NOT IN FACT A GAUGUIN.

The Art Institute has one of the finest collections of 19th Century art in the world. But it does not have a sculpture by Paul Gauguin. For a brief period it thought that it did have one but this turned out to be a forgery. The object was forged and so was the provenance yet scholars felt able to identify it as the earliest surviving ceramic by Gauguin. They also had knowledge of an authentic drawing -apparently rather slight-which suggested the faun to them (and to the forger). This image can be seen on page 14 of Gray's book on the artist's sculpture and ceramics. It shows the first page of  the Album Gauguin now in the Louvre. This sketchbook is concerned with projects for ceramic work and some of these do survive and are undoubtedly by Gauguin. This  provided clear evidence that Gauguin thought about an image of a faun. So it was possible that a similar ceramic would one day be found. This along with the forged provenance suggested that an unknown work by Gauguin had been found.If you look at the illustration in Gray you will see that the faun's pectoral area suggests femininity as much as  masculinity.I suggest-and it is easy with hindsight to do this-that the Faun looks rather like some sort of fantasy art model.

It is extremely easy to be wise after the event but the Art Institute's advisors should have noticed the poor quality of the modelling  of the faun and compared it with the  early family portrait busts by Gauguin .These show a bland and sophisticated modelling. These works exist as marbles  which must have been realised after the original clays by the artist, realised by a praticien a highly skilled craftsman and not by Gauguin himself. It is of course the case that Gauguin was consciously attempting a  primitivism in his work and that is the reason we admire his ceramics so much. But do look at the modelling of the chest and arms. Gauguin would not have been satisfied with something so slapdash . Primitivism is one thing but incompetence entirely another. Some will say that those who authenticated the work were influenced by the very fact that Gauguin ceramics are not easy to obtain.

It is sad/amusing to relate that at one point Gauguin did offer to work as a praticien. This can only have been in a moment of desperation or fantasy. It is even more improbable than the idea of James Joyce as a cinema manager.You can read more about the perpetrator of this forgery here

Museum Studies

The new museum in Athens is opening this weekend. There have been a few articles in the press and photos on the web but it is hard to get a good impression of the building and its displays. My first thoughts about the exterior is that it is gross/crass. Regarding the display of standing figures, well they should not be dwarfed by the architecture around them.

Regarding the moral blackmail which the Greeks are trying to use over the Elgin "marbles" I will say that the sculptures should stay in London . The suggestion that they could be loaned to Athens if British ownership was admitted was a foolish one to get into and one wonders if it is really the BM 's opinion. Repatriation of the "marbles", however much sentiment may urge it, would not be a good move from the point of view of museums in general. It  has been allowed in the case of body parts from indigenous peoples or after looting during major wars.   It would be a major operation to move these sculptures. They should not be moved except for conservation purposes. Maybe it was all a storm in a teacup.Perhaps Italy will ask for Veronese's Marriage at Cana to be sent back from the Louvre.The case seems to be similar.