Provenance is not everything

Between 1986 and 1994, this man painted a lot of pictures, using a lot of emulsion paint, and imitating the style of well-known Surrealist, Cubist and Impressionist artists.

Some were sold as originals by those artists, sold to prestigious buyers, for hundreds of thousands of pounds.

John Myatt's good, but he's not that good. There is a detectable difference between a Myatt and a Matisse, which you can judge for yourself by examining both. The reason his pictures sold for large amounts of money is that most people never really looked at them at all, and those few who did, did not really care. Most people only looked at the provenance.

The provenance was forged by John Drewe, who was good at it. And what it purported to show was that galleries and collectors had catalogued the paintings as what they were said to be. So they comforted themselves with the thought that good painters have off-days; which is certainly true.

Myatt took a pride in his work, and did his best to do it well. But the quality of his painting made no practical difference at all until Drewe fell out with his woman, and she shopped him to the police. (There was a fire, and someone died. It's worth reading a fuller account of the scam. You can also commission a Myatt, if you want.)

Notice that once a well-known gallery had bought it, whether or not they were really that impressed, the work acquired a new and perfectly genuine provenance. But that didn't make it a better picture.

The interested reader can choose their own exercise ...

A class on musicality

Long ago (well not that long, but it seems like long) I went to a lesson on how you physically express musicality. It was pitched at recent beginners, and the first half was all walking alone.

It was pointed out that when we walk, we start the movement at one time (in relation to the music) and end it at another where the next step starts, but at what point we pass through the middle is a choice. I don't remember the examples or exercises exactly, but the way I'd explain it to myself is this: If you are stepping on the ones of a waltz, for example, 1 2 3 1 2 3, you might pass through the physical middle of the step, when your feet pass each other, at the 2, or at the 3, or in the temporal middle at 2½, or somewhere else. It's up to you — what do you hear? Try it as you walk round the room.

Then try to lead and follow it, as we did in the second half of the lesson. It was one of those lessons where I went “oh, ok, that's how it works, now I get it, what fun!” — it wasn't necessary to be told twice. But I did need telling once.

You may think it's obvious. I didn't.

It made a real difference, was within my powers at the time, and would have taken me forever to work out for myself. The kind of simple-but-necessary information that enables someone with very basic skills to dance in a more satisfying way, mainly for herself but also for her partner. Free of metaphor and mumbo-jumbo, too.

Realising that that stuff was possible, and might be led, made an important difference to how I followed, and it also gave me options for musicality of my own.

[Since someone is bound to ask, it was Tom at the Crypt, one of the odd Monday-night lessons he does occasionally when Paul and Michiko are away. If you want my opinion, he is a talented and intelligent teacher. But his lessons are rare, and are never advertised, so you will never be able to take one intentionally, unless you take the Monday beginners' course, which is always him. I do know what his last name is, but since their website - El Once in the links - makes it a secret, it would obviously be rude of me to do otherwise.]

Sunday Photo - Oak

“You can cut


the flower, but


you cannot stop


the coming


of Spring.”

A quotation, whatever its flaws, that has always appealed to me.

Tender Horns

A few of us were practicing at The Room, which was a bit warm early in the evening, so we opened the door which leads into the back garden. Later on, the evening cooled, Anthony left, and the door was closed again and locked.

In a pause towards the end, just before we packed up, as I was coming out of an embrace, I saw that there was something on the floor over there, something very small and dark, a strange little shape with horns.

A snail had walked in to join us.

“Look!”, I said. “There's a snail.”

Puzzlement from my partner and others.
What can she mean?
Is this some sort of coded feedback?

A little garden snail, helix aspersa I suppose. It was walking smoothly across the floor as snails walk, in a straight line, towards the music. I don't know why it wanted to come in; the floor is smooth, but brightly-lit and dry, and hardly seemed like a good place for a snail. A very beautiful little creature, so out-of-context, waving its horns and leaving a shiny trail.

“Love's feeling is more soft, and sensible,
than are the tender horns of cockled snails ...”

Love's Labour's Lost

Holding its shell - its, and his, and hers, since all snails are both male and female - I gently peeled the creature from the floor, and it withdrew inside.

I couldn't get the back door open again - it had one of those high-security locks. By the time I reached the front door, the snail had reappeared and allowed me to see its curious textures and elegant apparatus for walking. I only touched the shell, as I thought our skins might be bad for each other. I put it behind a wheelie bin, where it was dark and damp.

Tangology @ Wild Court

[Important update 31st August 2009: This milonga is changing its venue to Sway bar, I haven't been there yet. Oct/09 I have now.]

This is a Sunday evening milonga with a class beforehand and the occasional special event. The venue is Wild Court, the same as for Negracha. I hadn't been to it before; I went because people I know and like to dance with recommend it. It starts at eight and ends at midnight, with classes from 6:30.

The Class: I did not take the class but I've heard good things about Eleonora's beginners' class and I saw some who seemed to have taken it and to be charmed with the basic idea.

Layout and Atmosphere: It's at Wild Court, the same venue as Negracha (see review on right), but the atmosphere is different. They only have the upstairs room, which is sort of like a school assembly or exam hall, and I think it belongs to some kind of college. The money table is squeezed in between the main room and the Ladies, and you're already in the nice lighting and warm feel by the time you get there. There's a pretty smiling lady behind the desk, and some interesting leaflets about other events. The doorway into the main room is prettied up with transparent drapery and fairly lights, which does make the going in feel like a pleasant event. Coloured spotlights heated up the room, but the tall windows along the side were opened to compensate, and it cooled with the warm Spring evening. There are high windows at one end and a bar at the other which I hadn't realised was temporary until it suddenly dematerialised at midnight. At the bar end, early Popeye and Wile-E-Coyote were projected on the wall. A partner said he loved this; I felt sorry for the poor hungry coyote. At the window end is a very high two-layered platform. The sense of division between those on the platform and those down below is softened by having some tables along the floor at the foot of the platform, with the same cheery floral tablecloths as the ones above. I sat at one of these towards the end of the evening. In fact I don't think the division is real; the tables up there don't seem to be reserved. But I was reluctant to take one, and took a seat along the wall instead. There were plenty of tables and seats in proportion to the numbers who turned up. I could have taken a table for myself.

Hospitality: I don't think I can honestly say that it's better in any specific respect than it is on Fridays ("still dire"), but the different table arrangements and relaxed atmosphere, the absence of crowd, not being kicked, and the fact that the place seems to have been partially cleaned in the last few months, did make me less annoyed about high drinks prices and horrible loos. [I've updated my Negracha review to say it's cleaner. Good work to whoever made that happen]. The cloakroom isn't available on Sundays, so next time I'll take a bigger kitbag to keep my coat out of the dust. But my things were perfectly safe on a chair. No water or refreshments are included, and signs say your own food or drink is forbidden. The drinks were the same as on Fridays - £1.50 for a bottle of still water, £4.50 for a single G&T. But the taps were working this time, with hot and cold water. So if you ran out of money after the £10 entry, you wouldn't come to actual harm. I didn't ask for a glass of tap water with my glass of wine; forgot. There's no means of drying your hands in the Ladies except toilet paper, and one of three was blocked by the time I arrived. Briefly wondering how the sanitary appliance could be so badly built that detailed instructions have to be posted on the doors, I realised that the instructions were still there but the object itself was, in fact, absent. Those are all venue things, obviously, but I'm whingeing anyway because I think they matter. Adds up to Poor, for an otherwise nice, relaxed milonga.

Anyone or anything interesting that turned up or happened: Nothing, thank goodness. Such a mercy. Although the platform is very good for people-watching, whether up or down. If you are feeling emotional, delusional, or under pressure, or you have any slight inclination to make a spectacle of yourself, you might consider not sitting up there unless you really, really want to.

What I thought of the DJing: I enjoyed it, it was all right. All traditional, tuneful stuff, reasonable numbers of milongas and vals tandas. There were cortinas, but I think the tandas varied in length. The sound was good and even all over the room, as far as I could tell.

Getting in: £10, more than I expected.

Getting there and getting home: It's a short walk from Holborn, under 10 minutes, and it ends at midnight. But the problem is, it's Sunday and the last trains are earlier than that. I was going to leave at eleven, but a friend kindly gave me a lift home.

The website: http://www.tangology.org/, much nicer looking than most, it tells you where it is, and when, and gives you a link to the latest announcement so you can see if there's going to be a performance. I don't think it says how much it is to get in. I had a vague impression that the music would be less traditional than it was; but that might have been just the legwarmers.

How it went: I arrived rather early and there were only two or three couples on the floor. It went well, though. I sat enjoying the music for a while and then was asked to dance when people changed partners. I think it would actually be quite an OK and relaxed place for the patient, prepared beginner to get some dances. At the peak - elevenish - there were 15 couples on the good-sized floor. Plenty of room for everyone. It was Sunday evening, and I danced a lot with friends. There was some really nice dancing. The milonga is nice. I'd go again. The room is nice, and the atmosphere was pleasant. The building's an expensive dump and needs some repairs.

Liquid Chocolate

This is a cioccolata fiorentina. They serve it hot, in an espresso cup.



With a spoon. You eat it with the spoon.



That's it.

Green

On a day when the sky is perfectly grey, you have to look hard, even with eyes, to see the beauty of the world. In photographs, it dulls the colour. I wish that I could show you the infinite variety of green that occurs on a wet Easter Saturday in Windsor.

I think these cherry blossoms glow almost more than they would in sunlight. This might be a nice light for portraits. I think I read somewhere that Nicholas Hillard thought it was.



I tried dialling down the exposure to show you the richness of green.



Here is Windsor Castle, with two tourists and a silver sky.



Back home on the Monday, the oaks were almost ready.