I have been to see The Mikado and, despite reminding myself more than once that I don't like Gilbert and Sullivan, rather enjoyed it. The action was transferred to a school facing an Ofsted inspection with a number of clever devices to explain why they were singing about Japan. The whole thing was preposterous of course, but having the Lord High Executioner represented by the P.E. teacher was somewhat more relevant to my life than a chap in a kimono. I was also struck by the similarities between Nanki Poo's attitude to his impending beheading and that displayed by Meursault in similar circumstances half a century later. W.S. Gilbert was clearly fond of pointing out the absurd, but was he also an existentialist? Discuss.




I was going to start this next bit by reminding readers of a brief post about a very interesting talk I attended last November on the subject of the Italian Futurists, but I discover that I neglected to write it at the time. If it's not too late I shall briefly summarise by saying that they were very bad people, who led directly on to people who were not only worse, but probably as evil as it's possible to be. Not that it's any mitigation, but their aesthetic sense (the Futurists') did influence the Vorticisists and others, for example, C.R.W. Nevinson, often praised in this blog. Anyway, regardless of never having mentioned any of this before, I'm still going to point out that an article about the effect they have had (still the Futurists - keep up) on arseholes such as Trump, Putin, Farage etc can be found here.

Let's end on some good news: the fourth volume of Robert Merle's 'Fortunes of France' series will be released in English in a couple of months time; betting has been suspended on this blog's book of the year award for 2018.

"The challenge for Nine of Clubs♣ people is to let go with grace and gratitude... and not fall to the lower vibration of apathy or self-pity."


Last weekend saw Fiasco, the local wargames show here in Leeds, and the passout token for those putting on games was a playing card; the one they gave me was the nine of clubs: so challenge accepted. The show itself was good in the morning and dead in the afternoon. Our demo of Zorndorf went very much with the flow; I don't think we played a turn after lunch. Astonishingly I have seen some reviewers complain that the organisers gave space to a charity cake stall. Fortunately Epictetus is in such peak physical shape these days that he was able to indulge himself with a bun or two and I can report that they were rather good; I hope that they are back next year. Other purchases included yet more trees from the tree man plus what is possibly the worst set of rules that I have ever read.



I bought a second hand set of Mailed Fist Wargames group's WWI rules and the best thing I can find to say about them is that it was only £3 wasted, or three cakes worth if you will. I won't take up too much of your time with them, but perhaps the oddest bit is the lack of any rules at all for machine guns because "they [were] a little thin on the ground". The author does however include specific stats for the 420cm L/12, Type M-Gerät 14, better known as the 'Big Bertha', of which only twelve were ever made and whose minimum range is somewhat longer than my table. I am more and more minded to stop buying WWI rules and instead to write my own; I'm envisaging a glorious mash-up of every family of rules that I've ever played plus the added complexity which inevitably creeps in every time that I try to devise something for wargaming use. The one thing that is certain is that the scale of these wonderful - though as yet unwritten - rules will be 12-15 figures per company, which should allow me to play a game of a brigade a side. I have it in mind to name them after one of C.R.W. Nevinson's Great War paintings, perhaps 'A Dawn', which is just about to be sold for a shed load of money.

I have been to another remarkably well attended lecture, this time at Leeds Art Gallery, where Sue Malvern spoke about C.R.W. Nevinson.


I have written here before about my admiration for Nevinson's futurist work prior to and in the early part of the First World War. I have also mentioned his switch to a more realistic stance when he became an official war artist and his rather bold decision to display 'Paths of Glory' with a paper sticker bearing the word 'Censored' across the two dead bodies when these were deemed inappropriate by the authorities. However I wasn't at all aware of his later work and so was pleased that this was a focus of Dr Malvern's talk. I was somewhat disappointed however to learn that there was a good reason for my lack of knowledge; namely that his later work wasn't actually very good. The speaker was dismissive of its artistic value and I didn't need her to tell me that what she illustrated with slides was aesthetically unpleasing; much of it hasn't survived, possibly indicating that it didn't sell.


She stressed that at the time Nevinson would have been considered the leading British war artist; as opposed to, say, Nash who might be so considered in retrospect. What then seems to have happened is that he maintained a high public profile - often appearing in the newspapers and socially very active - at the expense of any artistic development. I came away thinking that his ambivalent attitude to the growth of fascism in the 1930s was simply because he couldn't work out which side provided the best opportunity for advancement. Unlike most other first war artists he wasn't remobilised for the second, although he suffered a stroke in 1942 in any event.


So, there you have it, stick to the early stuff.

I have been to the Imperial War Museum. The big attraction (and cause of the biggest queues) is the new First World War display. I hear that it's very good and do intend to visit sometime, but my destination on this visit was the large exhibition of art brought together for the centenary of the Great War.

'Youth Mourning'

Much of the discussion in the lead up to today's anniversary, both in real life and in the shadow world of wargaming blogs, has been expended on the causes of the war, what started it and who was to blame. Sickert's 'Integrity of Belgium' is perhaps the only exhibit here that speaks to that debate, but even then I doubt anyone would pick up the message if it weren't for the title. There is a welcome nod to the home front and to the munitions industry, but almost inevitably the majority of the art is about the suffering, the loss, the futility.




One of the few works which directly addresses the act rather than the aftermath of conflict is Sydney Carline's  'The destruction of an Austrian machine in the gorge of the Brenta valley, Italy'. Only the white plane is obvious at first, then the danger from the camouflaged hunters becomes apparent. Even here the viewer's sympathies are manipulated to be with the victim. For those who don't know the work of Carline (Stanley Spencer's brother-in-law) he was an RFC pilot himself and after becoming an official war artist painted aerial combat scenes on the Italian Front and in Mesopotamia. Biggles fans should seek him out.

W.G. Bennett

The three artists most represented are Paul Nash, CRW Nevinson and William Orpen. The last continues the flying theme with three portraits of fighter pilots commissioned by Lord Trenchard himself. Anyone wishing to understand their lives at that time needs just to look into their eyes, powerfully drawn by Orpen.

The Doctor

I have written here before about my admiration for Nevinson's futurist works and they are well represented. However, he became more realistic in his depictions later in the war. His most famous painting 'Paths of Glory' (the title a quote from Gray's 'Elegy in a Country Churchyard') is naturally included in the exhibition; in 1918 it was censored although Nevinson bravely showed it anyway with a strip of brown paper bearing the word 'Censored' across the middle. The Times' art critic is quoted as saying "the censor's aim being apparently to persuade us that only Germans die in this war".




These days paintings can of course be viewed online, but there is still something to be gained by seeing them first hand; sheer scale aside from anything else. In John Singer Sargent's well known painting 'Gassed' the very large original displays a detail that I hadn't noticed before. In the background, behind the crocodile of blind men being led away, a game of football is being played. The viewer, as always, can draw their own conclusion as to the meaning of this.

And so to Tate Britain for their exhibition of the works of L.S. Lowry, the 'Pendlebury Utrillo'. After yesterday's observation about the small size of the Royal Academy's exhibition I am pleased to report that this one is huge. According to the Tate, 'painting was Lowry's obsession' and indeed it must have been to produce this lot; it's a mystery where he found the time to do any rent collecting. Six galleries are full of Lowry's work plus a Van Gogh, a Pissaro and a couple of paintings by Utrillo (not, as far as I know, ever referred to as the 'Montmartre Lowry') for a bit of context.




Lowry as an artist is smothered by misunderstandings: the sentimentality of those who don't look at the paintings and/or don't bother to think about them, the false belief that he was ignored and undervalued during his life and the somewhat redundant debate about whether his Toryism reduces the social commentary of his subject matter. I personally wasn't surprised to find that the biggest scrum of visitors was around 'Going to the Match', a painting that is a) full of his trademark figures and b) nostalgic from the perspective of Premier League, prawn sandwich football crowds. To Lowry, of course, it was simply the way things were.




As for not being recognised, the exhibition brings together for the first time five large works that were commissioned from the artist by the Festival of Britain; a fairly significant accolade I would have said. His political beliefs were middle of the road and of their time. In the early part of his career he certainly saw the bleak, industrial landscapes as inevitable, but that doesn't necessarily imply he thought them a good idea. And later on, when he painted them in the knowledge that they were disappearing, did he mourn their loss per se or the economic incompetence that failed to replace them with any other source of employment or wealth creation?




While the heavy industry may have disappeared, the other aspects of working class poverty that he documented are inevitably still with us: pawn shops, loan sharks and the like. Nothing sentimental there. Mind you, the Tate does its crass best to trivialise all this; in the shop one can buy a special exhibition flat cap - seriously!

I didn't have much time to look at the Tate's standing collection. Regular readers - at least those who read to end of postings such as this - may recall me praising a piece by Nevinson hanging in Leeds Art Gallery, and so I did go to look at the Nevinson work on show here. It is called 'The Soul of the Soulless City' which is a damn fine name quite apart from anything else.

Naturally no-one knows how Chinese Gordon met his death, although even those who point to the negative aspects of his character (his religious views were somewhat odd even by the peculiar standards of those who, er, hold religious views in the first place) don't denigrate his physical courage, so it's all at least possible. It has, in any event, become the accepted version and - if memory serves me right - Charlton Heston's demise in the 1966 film owes a debt to this portrayal.
The imperialist apologia is completed by a third painting on the same gallery wall, the truly dreadful 'Drums of the Fore and Aft' by Edward Matthew Hale, depicting the selfless sacrifice of child musicians in order to rally the regiment.