NEWSLETTER (£)
Art becomes more vivid when you know who the artists really were or are
This is In Conversation with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a subscriber-only newsletter from i. If you’d like to get this direct to your inbox, every single week, you can sign up here.
On Sunday, we went to the British Museum to see the Picasso: printmaker exhibition. On display are some of his prints from a vast collection owned by the museum. It has had five star reviews from the The Guardian, The Times and The Telegraph – and has been described as “revelatory” and “thrilling”.
It is, indeed, a remarkable show. I never knew he was such a technically brilliant printmaker and that his engravings could convey the passions, light and fire of his paintings. In some ways, these small, packed, black and white pictures are even more affecting.
But here’s the rub. The British Museum website tells potential visitors that the exhibition refers to “his complex relationship with women”, and “his tumultuous personal life”.
Sorry? “Complex”, was it? And “tumultuous” for him? This woman saw outstanding art with exploitative, uncivil, sexist images and tried to imagine how the females depicted – some, his lovers and mistresses – felt while he was carving their faces and bodies and when they saw the end product.
Thus, once again, we arrive at that cleft stick – should art be judged on its own merits? Are people who dwell on an artist’s beliefs and behaviours philistines or despicably “woke”?
I am woke and also immersed in the arts and literature. Art for art’s sake, yes. If that means not producing art to serve the interests of the politically or religiously powerful. But art disconnected from the artist’s behaviour? No. Not possible, desirable or honourable. Hitler painted pictures. So did Spain’s General Franco. Can you see the pictures without remembering their histories?
No, I am not putting Picasso in this category of violent dictators. In fact, he depicted the Spanish dictator as a crazed, mythical monster in his 1937 painting The Dream and Lie of Franco. Guernica, which I have seen, is the most staggering painting of Nazi casualties of war.
But to my mind Picasso was a macho tyrant. So was Gaugin. So was Dali. Many others. All men. Among the worst of them was one of the best of British artists, Lucian Freud.
Last year, Rose Boyt, one of his many children, wrote an excoriating memoir, titled Naked Portrait. It starts: “I just assumed I would be naked. I got undressed, and asked him what he would like me to do. He said it was up to me. I lay down on the sofa and shielded my eyes… I didn’t want to look obedient in my portrait, didn’t feel obedient… I was alert, prepared to spring up at any moment.”
Only 18, she was shocked when she saw the finished picture, her legs apart, her pubic privacy invaded and exposed. The artist’s gigantic talent cannot excuse this. He degraded his own child who was always desperate to please him and who, with her mum, lived in acute poverty while Mr Artist lived a life of luxury and admiration. How can anyone just admire the brushstrokes and palate knowing all that?
Writers, popstars, actors and others have had licence to behave appallingly too. After Me Too, to their shock and horror, some of them were exposed(!) and made to face the consequences. But in high art, it is assumed that creative people can’t possibly live by bourgeois rules of decency and kindness.
In my view, art becomes more vivid when you know who the artists really were or are. Eric Gill (1882-1940) was one of the great English artists whose imposing sculptures are found adorning the entrance of the BBC in London, in cathedrals, on war memorials and elsewhere. There are over a thousand of these. In 1989, a biographer revealed that in his private diaries, Gill had entries about his sexual abuse of his two older daughters and their pet dog, and an incestuous relationship with his sister. His delicate sculptures are still beautiful, but more disconcerting and more consequential.
Picasso’s prints have brutal scenes of beastly creatures, half-men, half-bulls, raping females. They hint at the sexual voracities of the painter. That made the experience of seeing the images more intense.
The art in both these and other cases cannot be split off from the artist. If you can’t see that, you are missing the deepest experiences of art-gazing.
Moving forward
Well, here we have it, straight from the horse’s mouth. Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, now admits that its own ineptitude and Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies “helped pave the way” for Hamas’s 7 October operation.
This explosive information was published in a report by Julian Borger, the Guardian’s correspondent in Amman. Shin Bet knew plans were afoot, but did not take them seriously. Netanyahu allowed Qatar to fund Hamas to divide and destabilise Palestinian political struggles. Additionally, under Netanyahu, Israelis praying outside Al-Aqsa mosque broke a 58-year agreement with Jordan that it was a sacred Muslim space, and Palestinian prisoners were badly treated.
I have repeatedly said on TV and radio shows, and in my own writing, that the story of Gaza did not begin on 7 October 2023. I get shouted at and accused of being a Hamas supporter.
Will that change? No. We live in a post-truth world.
A conversation I had this week
Do you know what “cognitive household labour” is? You really should. It is the uncounted, often unnoticed tasks and mental effort that go into running a household. Not just who does the shopping and cleaning etc – but who plans and thinks about jobs to do. I suddenly found myself getting very, very hot and bothered about that.
After being married for over 34 happy years, you might think everything is pretty settled and regular in our lives. Not so. It never is between couples. You love, trust and desire each other. Yet the same old complaints arise, the same old arguments go round the same circles.
My beloved does the washing, washing up, hoovering when needed but doesn’t cook much. I work from home and love cooking, so that works. But last week, I complained that he didn’t think constantly about what to make, what to buy, what we have etc. That all falls on me, reels through my head endlessly.
A row and peace followed in quick succession. I thought we would revert to the default position. But guess what? Talking really helped. Ever since then, he texts me about the evening meal, offers to get stuff and cook it. And his wife is happier and less tired.
Yasmin’s pick
Who knew UN resolutions on climate change would make good theatre? I didn’t until I saw the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Kyoto at Soho Place theatre in London. Audiences sit around the circular stage; the characters seem real; it’s action-packed (yes, really) and its emotional impact is indescribable.
“Drill, baby, drill,” said Trump before withdrawing from international agreements on climate change. BP and others happily returned to fossil fuel production. They will push the planet towards destruction, but environmentalists will not roll over. And those who see this play will be with them all the way.
