Arts Review
My first impressions of the Professor were not good. Upon being gestured by the waiter to test the wine, rather than the conventional gracious nod, he opted for a low and tender groan, followed by the words:
‘’Mmmmmm, that’s bloody good.’’
Regrettably, this would not be the last time I would hear him make that noise over the course of our meeting. He lectures in History of Art at a London Russell Group university - the name of which, for purposes of privacy, I have elected to omit - although, thanks to a combination of strike action, him rapidly approaching 70, and the debilitating effects of the warmer weather, he spends most of the year on sabbatical; as far as I understand, the majority of his time is now dedicated to writing placards for various galleries around the UK. I quote here from his description of Edward Collier’s Vanitas Still-Life (1697), in the Tate Britain:
‘’Collier’s painting belongs to a genre known as ‘vanitas’, which invites the viewer to meditate on their own mortality; we must keep in mind that, at this time, the vast majority of British people were deeply religious, and regarded their lives as little more than a preparation for death. This might strike a modern viewer as strange, but perhaps is more understandable if one considers the conditions of life during the period, which, with the exception of those of a privileged elite, were rather dire.’’
Food for thought. Since attending one of his seminars over Zoom some years ago, myself and the Professor have maintained an irregular correspondence, largely around the topic of the National Gallery’s much-reviled restoration of Piero della Francesca’s 1485 Nativity, in which he claims to have played a considerable role. This, as things have transpired, turns out to have been somewhat of an exaggeration - nonetheless, he had never failed to strike me as a man of rare good humour, and more importantly, not quite well-read enough to prove overly taxing as an intellectual sparring partner. It was for this reason that, last Sunday, I invited him to join me for lunch at Le Beaujolais, a French bistro nestled just off Leicester Square.