AND ANOTHER THING
Jingle bells, statutory blacks, an enigmatic tattoo and a touch of heliotrope
PAUL JOHNSON
Some things about Christmas have not changed, I thought, as I climbed the stairs into the Great Hall of the Knights of St John to attend the TLS annual party. Half- way up, one was hit by the full roar of sound, as several hundred literary types gave tongue — the authentic, uninhibited tones of the chattering classes braying for broken reputations. I attended my first London literary party exactly 40 years ago. There have, to be sure, been one or two sartorial changes. That elegant young woman in a suit of jeans — a poetess per- haps? — has sawn off the sleeves of her jacket to reveal, on her right upper arm, a floral tattoo. Is it one of those you can wash off? Dare I ask her? Otherwise, I decide, surveying the throng, the dance to the familiar music of time goes on. Isn't that Hugh Moreland over there, tanking up? And X. Trapnell, showing his teeth? And Lady Molly, talking to Widmerpool?
Nor have Christmas cards themselves altered in any essential in the whole of my lifetime, at any rate for those of us middle- class types who celebrate the season by sending each other specimens of Great Art. I recall, in the 1930s, puzzling over the appearance of Balthasar, Melchior and Caspar wearing the full-length, buttoned- up leggings then de rigueur for all the little girls I knew, but which also seemed to be the height of fashion among Magi in 6th- century Ravenna. And lo! those kings in the leggings pop up as usual again this Christmas, still holding out their gifts, still stretching their elegant limbs, though nowadays I can't help noticing that Mel- chior and Caspar are also dressed in what I can only call embroidered and bejewelled Y-fronts, worn, as John Major is supposed to do, outside their trousers.
These three, oddly enough, do not include the statutory black beloved of polit- ically correct Old Masters. It was a chance for them to put in a delicious splash of ebony right in the middle of their composi- tion. The young black prince in Hans Mem- ling's Adoration of the Magi, one of my favourite Christmas card perennials, is glo- riously garbed in ultramarine silk with long sleeves of scarlet and gold, and he has a beautiful powder-blue velvet cap, which he doffs elegantly in salute to the Christ child. I have always liked this painting for its crowded complexity. The actual visit of the Magi is only one of a whole series of dis- connected incidents taking place in what
appears to be the suburbs of a prosperous town. In a municipal playing-field, ringed by beech-trees, knights in full armour are preparing for a tournament, and they will shortly be joined by their competitors, who are riding in full panoply through the town's open portcullis. Meanwhile, a dele- gation of PLO leaders, some atop pan- tomime camels, are moving off for a sport- ing expedition into the desert.
The manger itself is as delightfully myste- rious to me today as when I first scrutinised it in 1935. Situated as it is by itself in the midst of Euro Disney rocks, it appears to have been purpose-built as a ruin, rather like an entry for the Turner Prize which did not quite meet with Nicholas Serota's approval. Alternatively, it may be the house Laurel and Hardy were supposed to com- plete in The Finishing Touch. Certainly, it exhibits the stigmata of their handiwork. The roof has four holes and an uncomplet- ed eave. A perfectly sound central Euro- pean stove sports a smoke-stack but Laurel has forgotten to put in a chimney. Doors lead nowhere, columns support nothing and the architecture hovers uneasily between late Romanesque and early Denys Lasdun. Still, it is the ideal setting for the exercise of Memling's riotous imagination since its open-plan design enables him to
include not merely the Holy Family, ox and ass, kings, attendants, sword-bearers etc. in full view, but buyers and sellers in what appears to be an international horse-fair taking place in the foreground. The sales- men are tall, handsome youths, fit for a Mayfair Aids day demo, with magnificent knee-length soft suede boots, amber dread- locks and M & S cashmere sweaters in peri- winkle, moss-green and pimento red.
More subdued is the manger in Hierony- mous Bosch's Adoration. It is, as you would expect, made of stage-set lath and plaster flats, full of large rat-holes, through which enigmatic and sinister faces peer. I don't recall this particular card, now issued by the Royal Marsden Cancer Fund, cropping up in my childhood, perhaps because it raises too many awkward questions. The statutory black is the grandest figure, dressed from head to toe in ivory white of such sumptuous elaboration that the tassels of his ballooning sleeves riot all over the stable floor. He carries a matching white orb surmounted by a golden pterodactyl straight from Jurassic Park. Is this his gift?
The senior king is a less pleasing sight: totally bald, a capo di mafia figure whose bodily imperfections are mercifully enveloped in a huge heliotrope cloak from which misshapen black feet protrude. His headgear, a diver's helmet in white metal, is placed at the Virgin's feet, and the third king, a lugubrious New Age traveller with designer stubble, has an even more mysteri- ous hat of perspex, imprisoning tiny figures. The real enigma of the painting, however, is that this decorous scene of adoration is about to be invaded by three drunken rev- ellers, rather as Irish males surge into Mid- night Mass when the pubs shut. Their ringleader is also dressed as a monarch, or rather is stark naked, and has flung a regal cloak of shocking pink over his limbs. He carries one crown, suspiciously like a papal tiara, in his left hand, while another is perched precariously on his head. Who is this unruly fellow and whence his irrup- tion? The oddest thing about him is a deco- ration on his right thigh. I thought at first he was tattooed, like the girl at the TLS party, but it turned out to be a large pearl attached to a gold ring actually sewn into his flesh. Yes: they had creepy fashions in the late-15th century too. Incidentally, the TLS girl noticed my inquiring glance and said, as she swept by, 'No, it doesn't wash off, nosey.'
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