Ian Dejardin, Director of Dulwich Picture Gallery, writes about some of the paintings in the permanent collection.
With wit and intelligence, Ian gives us at times sublime, at times hilarious, insights into the nature of the pictures and the artists behind them.
By Iain Betterton, manager of Dulwich Picture Gallery’s shop.
Scala’s new Director’s Choice series starts with Ian Dejardin’s personal tour through the permanent collection at Dulwich Picture Gallery. The series aims to be a refreshing new approach to re-examining already well known and loved bodies of artwork, through the eyes of those who have ultimate responsibility for their upkeep, display and interpretation.
Ian is better placed than most Directors for the task, having been Curator at Dulwich for many years before taking over the hot seat. His choice of 40 works from the collection contains some of the major works, a few lesser known gems, and some complete surprises. Those who assumed there was little else to know about the Dulwich collection ought to think again, and be prepared for some, at times sublime, at times hilarious, insights into the nature of the pictures and the artists behind them.Guides to Old Master paintings in centuries-old institutions sound like rather dry affairs, with any vividness coming from the pictures themselves, not especially from the text. Anybody with these expectations in mind will find themselves very quickly re-adjusting their focus. Not only does Ian’s passionate engagement with the pictures that mean the most to him fizz off the page, but his commentary is both wonderfully entertaining and devilishly funny. This book should have a warning on the cover: may contain irreverent humour. Try keeping a straight face as Ian elects to call Van der Werff the ‘flared trousers of art history’ or King James VI ‘clearly knee-high to a bowling ball.’
But it’s not just Ian’s individual brand of wit and artistic intelligence that brings this guide to the collection alive – it is the host of intriguing personalities, stories and artistic motivations behind the chosen pictures, and what they ultimately reveal, which really thrill the reader. Who knew that Venetia Stanley’s husband Sir Kenelm Digby was a ‘proto-scientist, author of one of the first cookbooks in English, inventor of the modern wine bottle and friend of King Charles I’? And who would dare to suggest he may have had something to do with his wife’s sudden and very premature death, as memorialised by Van Dyck’s portrait, in testing out a lethal home-made aphrodisiac? Well, that would be Ian, unflinching in his assessments, never shirking from an awkward conclusion, tackling the taboo with something akin to relish. (So does DOV’s Bruce Gregory, see links below)
Wouwerman’s Halt of a Hunting Party becomes an indictment of ‘the very seventeenth-century response’ of the Dutch psyche to the influence of the Dutch-Italianates. The image portrays an increasingly materialistic society represented by the ‘pretentiousness’ of the main figures doffing caps, slaves in tow, juxtaposed with a squatting dog doing what squatting dogs do and an old man ‘begging, or cringing.’ Ian’s conclusion? ‘The poor are always with us. Reality intervenes; some things never change.’
Ian is not averse to some gentle mocking of the founders either, who attributed Piero di Cosimo’s A Young Man to one Leonardo da Vinci – ‘Before we laugh too loudly.. it is worth remembering how few real Leonardo paintings there are in the world’. Nor does he mind getting a laugh at his own expense, as when looking at Van Huysum’s Vase with Flowers he confesses
‘It was in front of this painting’ with its remarkable detail, ‘that I finally discovered that I needed glasses’. Ian is fascinated by the painterly techniques of Hobbema and Guercino, intrigued by the curious figures in Goubau’s recently conserved Landscape with Figures, and in reverence to Reni’s depiction of an intense and electric St John. And we are happily, longingly swept along with him.
Those of us on the staff at Dulwich are very privileged to get a Director’s tour of each new exhibition or display. When Ian interprets a picture, or a whole exhibition come to that, it brings real light into the murkiest of shadows, and real understanding for those without the knowledge to unlock the intricacies of the social contexts at play or unpick the art historical codes needed for illumination. He manages to pin down what’s really going on in a picture, and will have us guffawing along the way. This book is a little like how I imagine a staff tour of the permanent collection would be, something we just wouldn’t have time to do. Well, now everyone can access the richness of Ian’s viewpoint on the pictures we (think we) know and love.
How to buy the book: Click here
Also by Iain Betterton: Selling St Sebastian
Some surprising links: Ruskin investigates the Mystery of Venetia Digby’s Death part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
