MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
I HAVE noticed a curious, and I suppose discreditable, thing about myself. Although I am deeply embarrassed when people lose their tempers with me, and although I am rendered sick for hours if I utterly lose my own temper, yet I am delighted when I observe people losing their tempers with each other. A sharp word addressed to me by a bus conductor will remain upon my consciousness as a painful wound : but I laugh rapturously when I see my fellow citizens losing all dignity and control and indulging in what Byron has well called "the wine of passion—Rage." Upon my mantelpiece I keep a small figure of an angry Chinese god. He wears pink trousers, a yellow kilt with green spots upon it, an orange tippet with a green fringe, and a neat white belt. His torso is bare and of the colour of aubergine. But what renders my gdel so acceptable is that his face is coloured bright blue—indicating rage. At the back of his head there is a small white patch or tonsure which has remained immune to his emotion ; the rest of his face and head has turned indigo under the pressure of extreme anger. There he stands day in and day out, sturdy and silent, but bursting with fury to the tips of his two small horns. Mr. Maurice Baring must have possessed a similar effigy, since among his many personal expressions was the phrase "to start a blue face "—or more usually just "blue face" indicating that degree of passionate indignation by which one is rendered, not purple with rage, not even livid with rage, but the exact colour of the Oxford English Dictionary. It is always a delightful experience, and one which brings mirth and self-satisfaction in its train, to notice other people getting blue faces in circumstances for which one has oneself no responsibility and in which, with care, one is unlikely to become involved. The contrast between one's own dignity and the loss of control in others produces that "sudden glory" which, according to Thomas Hobbes, is the main cause of laughter. But it is even more delightful when a blue face assails men of adult age, correct deport- ment, and profound erudition.
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I visited this week the exhibition of cleaned pictures which is being held at the National Gallery. I had hitherto regarded the art experts, the Kunsthistoriker and the Kunstforscher, as the gentlest of all human beings. The image I had formed of them was an image of mild ascetics, intent only upon their science, immune to the passions which disarray the more ibundane worker, their heads bowed slightly by years of peeping and prying, their long fingers tremulous as antennae. But when I entered the National Gallery I noticed at once that the faces of the experts were as blue as that of my little Chinese god. In English, in French, in Italian, in Dutch, in Flemish and Walloon did they rave at each other, either in condemnation or in defence of what had been done. I do not question for a moment that if these masterpieces have in fact been damaged, then the art experts have the duty and the right to pit on a blue face. Yet it seemed strange to me that, whereas some of the experts shouted that never before had they been able to appreciate the colour tones of the pictures which had been cleaned, others yelled in their antistrophe that never again would they be able to look Philip IV in the face. "Ruined," one elderly expert hissed at me—" ruined utterly ; ruined beyond repair." I thought the portrait much improved myself, but as a layman, and with so many blue faces around, I felt it preferable just to nod. Yet on this occasion I was not amused by the anger around me ; I was distressed. For if indeed the zeal of the cleaners and restorers has damaged or defaced our precious pictures, then sorrow, resentment and mortification must result. Obviously this was no laughing matter. I retired from the conflict and read with care the reasoned catalogue of the exhibition and the cool calm foreword which Mr. Philip Hendy has attached to it. I was enlightened and consoled.
* * * * I learnt that this was by no means the first occasion on which the experts had lost their tempers with each other about the cleaning of pictures in the National Gallery. They had been equally incensed in 1846 and 1936 ; and the Select Committee of the House of
Commons which had enquired into the matter in 1853 had found the experts to be "witnesses, whose fervent love of art seems to have kindled some personal animosity." I remembered the controversy which raged before the war around the Giorgione panels and how, as I had been told, the younger experts who had taken sides in this dispute thereafter cut each other when they met fortuitously at Haifa railway station or upon the sanded road to Alamein. Why is it that differences of opinion between artists and art experts should generate a greater degree of heat, and provoke wilder over-statements, than occur in similar discussions between chemists, biologists or astroncanens? The main reason must be that in estimating the authenticity of a work of art, or the amount of damage done to it by cleaning or restoration, the disputants are unable to rely wholly upon demonstrable facts ; their own erudition and the resources of modern technique provide them with only 8o per cent. of their final judgement ; there remains an area of 20 per cent, which cannot be proved by any scientific method and which is determined by the subjective standards of taste and intuition. These standards are personal, and often emotional, and this explains why art experts get so cross. Mr. Handy suggests other explanations. He suggests that English art experts in particular loathe cobalt blue ; and he quotes Ruskin to show that when a critic happens to dislike the manner of some artist he COmpinins that a picture has been "irretrievably ruined" when in fact it has only been restored to the condition in which it left the artist's easel. The picture was tolerable to him when cbncealed under a glutinous coating of "Gallery varnish "; but it became intolerable, when once the original colours had been revealed. There is, I suppose, some truth in this argument.
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How did the present dispute arise? It began on October 28, 1946, when Sir Gerald Kelly wrote a moderate letter to The Times in which, while admitting that cleaning "when tenderly done" can have admirable results, he expressed the apprehension that the authorities of the National Gallery were going too fast and too far. The Koninck landscape, in his view, had been reduced to "an incoherent ruin." He was supported by Mr. Rodrigo Moynihan and by Mr. Devas, who added that the "Chapeau de Paille " and Rembrandt's "Woman bathing" had been over-restored. The opposite view was expressed by Sir Robert Witt, who stated that we had all become so accustomed to the dim tones of our national collections that we were "surprised and even shocked" when pictures displayed bright colours. Mr. Victor Passmore for his part defended the treatment of the Rem- brandt and reproved the critics for sharing Sir George Beaumones view that an old picture should have the tone of an old violin. Mr. Clive Bell and Sir Eric Maclagan were also on the side of the cleaners. Then, on December 24, came Augustus John's broadside. He agreed that in principle it was a good thing to release pictures from "the false mystery of chemical gloom." He defended the cleaning of the Rembrandt, was a little startled by Poussin's "Bacchanal," and concentrated his fire upon the Chapeau de Paine. He objected to the blue sky ; but even more did he object to the treatment accorded to Suzanne Fourmenes face. He suggested that all further cleaning should be suspended pending investigation by a Commission on which practising artists should be represented. The Trustees wisely undertook to hold the present exhibition in order that the nublic !night be able to judge for themselves.
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What therefore are the impressions which I as an ordinary layman, have derived from this exhibition ? First, that cleaning must be "tenderly done" even when all dirt and varnish have to be removed. Secondly, that the critics were justified in raising the alarm. Thirdly, that the authorities at the National Gallery have demonstrated that they have never acted with the slap-dash ignorance of their nine- teenth century predecessors, but with greater knowledge, better tech- nical apparatus and a deeper sense of responsibility. And finally, that the exhibition in itself is a delight, in spite of all the blue faces, to the eyes.
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