London Pride

"London Pride" means a few different things to the British. First of all, it's a flower, saxifraga x urbium, a perennial flowering plant, found in gardens throughout the land.  During the WWII London Blitz of 1940, as the flower rapidly colonized the bombed-out sites, it became a symbol of the resilience of London and ordinary Londoners in the face of the relentless onslaught. After that, and as testament, Noël Coward wrote a song called "London Pride" that became hugely popular.

On our recent visit to London, we wondered how much of the symbolic London Pride we might find amidst all the ongoing  chaos of "Br-x-t" (people will barely say the word out loud!). One thing was clear: the weather was just lovely, mild, sunny, and the ceanothus outside the house where we stayed was at its stunning peak!

Some things were very much unchanged from our last visit. The Burlington Arcade still holds fascination for Matthew with all its fancy (and expensive!) watch shops...

...the elegantly dressed bear still stands outside Atkinson's Gentlemen's clothing store...

...and the shoe-shine man still has his place in the middle of the Arcade, and still has customers waiting for their turn.

At the far end of the Burlington Arcade, along Piccadilly, is the entrance to the venerable Royal Academy of the Arts, with the imposing statue of Sir Joshua Reynolds, its first president. Run by artists since 1768, they're celebrating 250 years of bringing world-class exhibitions, free displays of art and architecture, the annual Young Artists Summer Show, and much more. Definitely something to take pride in!

We were there to see their current featured show, "The Renaissance Nude", which explores the pivotal elevation of the nude in art, from 1400 to the 1530s. An important inclusion in the exhibit was this 1533 oil painting of Saint Sebastian by the Italian painter, Agnolo Bronzino. Earlier depictions of him usually show him being brutally martyred during the persecution of Christians by the Romans in 288 AD -- shot with arrows, beaten, thrown in a sewer.  By contrast, Bronzino's painting blurs the boundary between the secular and the sacred, showing Sebastian casually seated, no longer tied to a tree, more like a portrait (albeit with one arrow piercing his midriff!).

There were, however, a number of examples of extreme brutality being rendered, such as this painting, The Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand, from the workshop of the Swiss artist, Hans Leu the Elder in 1508. In portraying partially nude bodies undergoing torture and sacrifice, artists sought to make Christian subjects more realistic and so more accessible, a testament, if you will, to their unwavering Christian faith. This particular work is based on the legend of Emperor Hadrian ordering Roman solders who had converted to Christianity, to be tortured until they renounced their new religion.

At the beginning of the 16th century, a growing interest in the Classical worlds of Greek and Roman mythology inspired artists to use this context to explore the nude. I loved this painting by Piero di Cosimo A Satyr Mourning over a Nymph painted around 1500. It's very quiet, but moving, both the Satyr and the dog seemingly bereft at the nymph's song being silenced by the wound piercing her throat.

Titian's beautiful rendition of Venus Rising from the Sea, goes back to Pliny the Elder, who described a painting of the same subject by the Greek artist Apelles.  It became popular in the Renaissance, and although Titian is more known for portraying nudes in pastoral setting, he also turned to the subject in 1520, and produced this stunning work.

Another work that caught my eye and imagination was Jacometto Veneziano's 1497 work, titled on one side Portrait of a Man, and featuring a serious and quite prosperous looking gentleman...

...whilst on the other side, Lovers in an Interior,  is an unabashed celebration of sensuality. I did wonder how the merchant from Northern Europe, who commissioned the work, chose to display the two very different sides of human nature in his home!

The only place to go after enjoying such beautiful art, was to step across Piccadilly and into the sumptuous world of Fortnum and Mason's, purveyor of exotic and basic provisions, established in 1701 by a former footman of Queen Anne, William Fortnum!

Here, a "nice cup of tea" (F&M's Darjeeling blend) and a serving of scones, clotted cream, and strawberry jam, were the perfect pick-me-up before we faced the challenge of getting back to our home base in North London.

I say "challenge" because our visit coincided with the arrival of the Climate Change Protest group,  "Extinction Rebellion", that shut down large swathes of Central London. This bright pink boat took over Oxford Circus, where Oxford Street meets Regent Street.  Marble Arch and Waterloo Bridge were similarly commandeered by groups of protesters, some of whom chained and/or glued themselves to various vehicles. Tents were set up, pop-up kitchens, blankets stretched out on pavement, music, speeches, singing. It was all very festive, but highly disruptive in spite of the importance and urgency of the message.

And just in case you might think they were only concerned with human beings, a list of other threatened species reminded us that we are all part of one big world, connected and dependent each upon the other!

Side-bar "discussion sessions" on Regent Street provided chairs and speakers, who went to great lengths to explain their movement. What struck us as so quintessentially "English" was that they were all unfailingly polite and solicitous...and often very apologetic at the chaos they were causing. I guess that's something to be proud of. No one was yelling, no windows were smashed!

Undeterred by the challenges of transport, we set out on Good Friday for Trafalgar Square and a visit to the National Gallery, which has been anchoring this iconic space since 1824.  Here, it houses some of the world's most famous works of art. Our jaws were sagging as we wandered through huge galleries filled with legendary paintings by Constable, Reynolds, Turner, just to name three very English artists.

We were there, though, to see paintings by this gentleman, Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923), a Spanish impressionist painter, about whom we knew absolutely nothing, but who, in his lifetime, was a hugely successful painter of portraits, landscapes and works that presented social and historical themes.

Born in Valencia, Sorolla showed a talent for drawing from an early age. Orphaned at the age of two, he and his sister were raised by an Aunt and Uncle. Sorolla studied master paintings at the Prado Museum, then won a grant to spend four years studying painting in Rome and Paris.

His first striking success was with this work, Another Marguerite (1892), a stark portrait of a manacled woman sitting forlornly with her worldly goods in a bundle, guarded by two armed policeman. Awarded a gold medal at the National Exhibition in Madrid, then first prize at the Chicago International Exhibition, it was acquired and subsequently donated to the Washington University Museum in St. Louis, Missouri. Sorolla soon rose to general fame and became the acknowledged head of the modern Spanish school of painting.

 Another large canvas shows a group of crippled boys at the sea shore, supervised by a monk. Painted in 1899, Sorolla titled the work Sad Inheritance. It was seen as a pictorial documentation of a polio outbreak that occurred at that time in Valencia, and earned the artist his biggest official recognition: the Grand Prix and a medal of honor at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900 and the medal of honor at the National Exhibition in Madrid in 1901.

Sorolla's greatest loves were his family and his art. He would work very very fast, six to nine hours a day, often in the full glare of sunlight (and usually dressed in a suit!).  He wrote, "I could not paint at all if I had to paint slowly. Every effect is so transient, it must be rapidly painted.” 

His wife, Clotilde, and three children, Maria, Joaquín and Elena feature frequently in his works.  Here, Clotilde sits with her daughters in their garden, the dappled sunlight spilling across their dresses. His brilliance with sunlight was one of the hallmarks of Sorolla's works.

This talent is on full display in this very large canvas, Mending the Sail, (1896), showing a community working together to repair the sail of one of their fishing boats. Several other paintings reflected the importance of fishing to the coastal community. The scale and bright colors of this work were really astonishing!

Returning from Fishing, (1894) gives us an idea of the size of that sail, as a fishing boat is towed ashore by two oxen. Sorolla's rendering of the ocean water reminded us of Anders Zorn's paintings, where you could almost feel the touch of the water, it seemed so real.

In Children on the Beach (1910), Sorolla again displays why he is called "the master of light". This painting has an almost irridescent glow!

By the time we reached this painting, Strolling at the Seashore, (1909) showing Clotilde and Maria, in all their summer finery, enjoying a breezy stroll along the sun-drenched beach, we were ready to pack our bags and head to Valencia to experience for ourselves that magical light that Sorolla always seemed to capture. This is the first retrospective of his works in the United Kingdom in over a century, so a big "chapeau" to the National Gallery for introducing so many of us to this master artist. May it not be another hundred years before we see his works again. 

So, quite a bit to take pride in during our stay in London Town. But, meanwhile, back in Paris, where the chestnut trees are at their glorious peak, another piece of London is visiting.

 Out in the Bois de Boulogne, at the Fondation Louis Vuitton (known to all as "the Gehry building!), some 110 paintings and works on paper are on loan from the Courtauld Institute in London, which is undergoing extensive renovations at its home site, Somerset House. What a treat for anyone visiting Paris!

As with Sorolla, we knew nothing about Samuel Courtauld (1876-1947), other than there was a substantial art collection and institute attached to his name. As the son of a successful textile (rayon) magnate, he grew the family business into a global empire, and promoted radical ideas (for his time) that workers should own shares in the firms they worked for, in order to give them a sense of pride and a stake in the success of the firms. But his big love became art, and from 1922 on, he and his wife, Elizabeth, amassed the most astonishing collection of French impressionist and post-impressionist paintings. 

To stand in front of Manet's Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère (1882) and realize that this landmark, stunning work hung for years in the Courtauld family house, passed by, lingered on, enjoyed by family and visitors alike on a daily basis, really blew our minds!

 And the same could be said for this Renoir The Skiff  from 1875...

...and Monet's Gare St. Lazare (1877), with its puffs of steam billowing up and out to join the clouds in the sky.

 Arguably one of Van Gogh's most famous painting, Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear (1889), was bought by Samuel Courtauld from Paul Rosenberg in 1928. This, too, hung in the Courtauld family home...

 ...along with many many works by Paul Cézanne. A whole room in the exhibition is filled with works by Courtauld's favorite artist. The pride of place went to this one, The Montagne Sainte-Victoire with a Large Pine (1887). Samuel Courtauld, in fact, played a fundamental role in the recognition of Cézanne in the United Kingdom, by building up one of the greatest collections of the painter’s work.

So, at the end of the day, and in spite of the current chaos in Westminster, I did feel that London Pride can, indeed, still stand for a lot of things: certainly for Samuel Courtauld for his discerning eye and deep pockets in acquiring and sharing with the world such an astonishing collection;  pride for the National Gallery for bringing back Señor Sorolla's beautiful paintings to a new audience;  and yes, pride even for the Climate protesters for so politely reminding us that we are but one "blue marble" planet! The opening verse of Noel Coward's song goes:

"London Pride has been handed down to us.

London Pride is a flower that's free.

London Pride means our own dear town to us,

And our pride it for ever will be." 

(If you're interested, here's a link to a sweet recording of the song made by Julie Andrews, on her very first recording album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcU4qWJ5XNk)

À bientôt!

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