Tuesday 16th January 2018

I was plunged straight back in to London life with a private visit on the day of my return from the Far West after Christmas. 28th December it was. This visit was so private we were the only people there. The rooms were in darkness when we entered. Gradually they lit up, and the works could be seen. For centuries they’ve existed and been seen. But after the hours of daylight though and with nobody else present, not even a VIP tour with guide, just 4 in the party, Anthony Mottram, Vadim, me, Adrian Edge and the Artist Trustee – well, it was quite a different thing. Did they ever expect, in their glaring fame, ever to be seen like this? So private, so after hours. More real. More frail. One lunge and one could have scratched the Piero, smashed the Arnofini Marriage. One felt so responsible, being alone with these works. You could see their workings somehow, how they are attached to the wall with banal brackets, their frames, how they are physical objects like any other that might be taken off the wall, laid flat and worked on. The thick impasto of the milling public or even of those gathering at a private fund-raising breakfast was stripped away. No strangers present of any kind, just friends viewing privately. So the pictures too became private in a strange way.

Our Artist Trustee was magnificent too. His commentary on Piero’s Bap of Christ was thrilling – what a radical painting it is. Not realistic at all. The reflection of the mountain in the River Jordan, in any case a stylised stream – well, in real life it wouldn’t reflect like that. It’s the picture that requires a reflection just as it also requires the figures to have radiant white flesh such as would never be seen in a living person because most likely they’d be dead if they were that pale.

I recommended a different background hanging for the central apex. Really that brown-red damask is not sympathetic to paintings. But the AT said it was awfully expensive to replace. He spoke about restoration and pictures that were mucked about with in the past. There’s a Tintoret that’s had a big expanse of floor added in much later, after flood damage; also a Giorgione now called ‘St George and the Dragon’ but originally there was no St George and the Dragon. The Victorians added them in, presumably mystified by the lack of subject matter otherwise- just two men sitting on a bench. But what to do now? This is how people think the pictures look. It’s no good going back. Pure restoration is near impossible: the AT thinks that the sky in the Titian of Ariadne and Bacchus which was controversially restored in the 60s (came back bright blue) looks like a mono print of the period. So they liked it like that. Titian’s Ariadne and Bacchus has now got an authentic 1960s element. It’s all right really. Part of the history of the pic.

What do we see when we look at  pic?

We were in the gallery for 3 hours at least and afterwards dined at Zedel. The AT treated us. Unbelievable.