All centuries but this
Richard Shone THE REVIEWS THAT CAUSED THE RUMPUS by Brian Sewell Bloomsbury, £12.99, pp. 365 Why is this book, which is well writ- ten, provocative, topical and invariably Informative, such a bore to read? Why is it that someone who is knowledgeable, even occasionally erudite, who spices his pages with the experiences of a lifetime spent among works of art, can produce some- thing that is ultimately so sterile? Other art critics whose jobbing journalism has been gathered together — Roger Fry and Herbert Read, Frank Rutter and John Berger, Max Kozloff and Arthur Danto, for examples — give an impression, no matter how One might disagree with their opin- i"s, of passionate engagement and a warmth for their subject. Imagine, for a moment, a book, com- piled along similar lines, of essays and reviews on 20th-century fiction. It goes from the holiest of holies — Joyce, Lawrence, Proust, Woolf, Kaflca and Beck- ett _ through, say, Endo and Updike, Grass and Marquez, Spark and Ballard _ to a range of younger writers that might include Easton Ellis and Boyd, Ishiguro and Siisskind, Ackroyd and Tartt and the talented young thing whose first novel was rapturously received the other day but Whose name. . . . Imagine wading through this and finding scarcely a word of unquali- fied welcome, a string of negatives, an M6 Pile-up of disdain and abuse. This is what Brian Sewell achieves in his, admittedly selective, account of 20th-century painting rand sculpture. Include in that hypothetical book on fiction vituperative attacks on the Booker and the Prix Goncourt, literary critics, PEN and a host of publishers, librarians and booksellers, and you would then be in command of an equivalent Picture of Sewell's sweeping range of targets.
At the same time, however, it is some- thing of a relief to see this book in print. Hitherto Brian Sewell's reputation has rest- ed predominantly on his weekly art reviews for the London Evening Standard, a parish- Pump, catch-all paper, as he himself admits, with a readership restricted to the capital. Even so, his column has turned him into a national figure and it is now difficult to avoid his opinions quoted in the national press or — worse — his voice on radio and television (whether advertising ice cream or giving a knee-jerk reaction on the news to any controversial 'work of art'). Now that a wad of these Standard reviews (along with pieces from Harpers & Queen and Tatler — such is his scope) has been collected, we can follow more closely the tenor of these opinions over several years, and witness the hardening of his aesthetic arteries. It is a relief to find that he need not be taken seriously as a critic of 20th- century art, even by those fortunate enough to live beyond the ken of the Evening Standard.
What clearly emerges is that Sewell is really an old-fashioned, rather endearing cultured gent. He tries to disguise this, screening the truth with lavatorial humour and quotidian allusions. His natural fastidi- ousness does not blanch at having to tackle the latest 'wretched' exhibitions of 'banal, gauche, vacuous, accidental and futile' art; nor does a refined sensibility prevent him from making personally abusive remarks (I wonder what the family of the late Jean- Michel Basquiat thinks of his being described as a 'pretty and seductive para- site'; luckily, Sewell's notoriously offensive comments on John Bellany have not been included). Old-fashioned chivalry is not for him — Gillian Ayres, Sandra Blow and Jennifer Durrant are the 'three monstrous women' of the Royal Academy (he appears to endorse the view of Marcus Aurelius's physician — Sewell is a learned man — that women are constitutionally flawed for the production of great art).
Most surprising, perhaps, is his racy way with naughty words though, typically, he prefers an anatomical and medical vocabu- lary over more brutish Anglo-Saxon equiv- alents. He takes any opportunity to put his finger on perineum and penis, rima and scrotum; no chance is missed to introduce sodomy (between 'Irish labourers — in back-street Kilburn lodgings'), phallus, arsehole, bondage, conjugation, bugger, even tits; he can put the rump into rumpus along with any Cheelcie Chappie. The cumulative effect is as though some strange 'I tried a little pot once.' mating had occured between Anthony Blunt and Jim Davidson and out popped this alarming hybrid.
But do not be fooled by this scatological smokescreen. Sewell is a cultured man. So much does he take it for granted that his credentials among the Old Masters are impeccable, that his writings on pre-20th- century art have been omitted from this book. We have to make do with asides and glances, with the intonation of great names — Raphael and Rubens, Michelangelo and Titian, Turner and 'old Rodin' (a charming mateyness creeps in, nearer our own centu- ry). This long-serving hierodule makes all the right noises, swings his scented thurible at the appropriate moments, filling the air with the names and achievements of the past. Do not be misled by teeny doctrinal lapses, a chorister's smutty high spirits, the fishnet tights under the Sister Wendy habit — Sewell's faith is fundamentally unshake- able. Indeed, it is an essential prop, for, by uniting himself with the great Masters of the past as their divine spokesman in the Thames Valley, he gains a measure of per- sonal security, a cassock of reflected glory to cover his nakedness when confronted with the unruly member of contemporary art.
The real sin in the eyes of Sewell and his fellow acolytes is the attempt to create just those works which, in the words of 'the arrogant and ridiculous Roger Fry', will become 'the ark of the covenant to some succeeding generation of cultured men'. That is why this relentless diatribe against such a variety of artists — from Picasso and Miro to Hamilton, Hockney and Hirst (oddly, the contents page thinks the two Spaniards are 'British' artists — not the only editorial slip) is such a sterile read.
Of course, there is some fun on the way. There are delicious swipes from Widow Twankey's rolling pin — at the Arts Coun- cil's 'manifestoes', at Euan Uglow and Glynn Williams. But perhaps most enjoy- able for those readers not enamoured of Sewell's opinions are several revealing autobiographical touches. A pre-war child- hood is evoked with references to the 'Box Brownie', 'Bugger Bognor' and 'fifty- shilling tailors'; there are sharp reminis- cences of Gowing and Coldstream; an early attempt at nude self-portraiture; compassion for animals; banishment from the Royal College of Art; summer sojourns with Dali. But how much more we could have gleaned if Sewell had collected his articles on motoring or expanded his thoughts on animal rights — for he is the Bardot of Kensington's stray bitches. Then what a self-portrait we might have had as the bonne bouche to his intellectual feast.
But no, against all the odds, he has insisted we take him seriously as an art critic and has thus provided (against, it seems, his inclinations) a bible both for the Philistines and the self-appointed hierophants of culture.
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