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| We’re killing national treasures and closing our minds to great art | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| My first encounter with modern art was in the botanical gardens in Edinburgh. I was four and just learning to read. On the walls of Inverleith House, a gracious Georgian mansion among the tall trees, was an enormous painting of a man with his arms defiantly crossed and the letters OK scrawled beneath like some terse approval. It seemed important that the artist had painted himself so much larger than life (this was Oskar Kokoschka’s self-portrait, I learned) and that he had written across his picture too. All at once, I discovered that artists could make art as angrily as any child and that they signed their own homework. | My first encounter with modern art was in the botanical gardens in Edinburgh. I was four and just learning to read. On the walls of Inverleith House, a gracious Georgian mansion among the tall trees, was an enormous painting of a man with his arms defiantly crossed and the letters OK scrawled beneath like some terse approval. It seemed important that the artist had painted himself so much larger than life (this was Oskar Kokoschka’s self-portrait, I learned) and that he had written across his picture too. All at once, I discovered that artists could make art as angrily as any child and that they signed their own homework. |
| I would never have seen Kokoschka’s Self-Portrait as a Degenerate Artist had we not visited the Royal Botanic Garden (RBGE) most Sundays. My brother and I would clamber around the rock garden, collect exotic maple leaves and gaze at the scarlet fish in the pond in front of Inverleith House before going in to look at paintings by Miró, Picasso and Matisse or to gawp at Duane Hanson’s hyper-real figures of tourists, who also seemed to be admiring the view. And what a view it was: the modern art inside and the green world outside, uniquely and exhilaratingly fused. | I would never have seen Kokoschka’s Self-Portrait as a Degenerate Artist had we not visited the Royal Botanic Garden (RBGE) most Sundays. My brother and I would clamber around the rock garden, collect exotic maple leaves and gaze at the scarlet fish in the pond in front of Inverleith House before going in to look at paintings by Miró, Picasso and Matisse or to gawp at Duane Hanson’s hyper-real figures of tourists, who also seemed to be admiring the view. And what a view it was: the modern art inside and the green world outside, uniquely and exhilaratingly fused. |
| You walked to the art through the park, brisked along by the scented air. Or you came across it by chance, after rolling down grassy banks. Generations of children saw it, many for the first time, because Inverleith House was hearth and home to the Botanics, simply the place where everyone gravitated. From 1960 until 1986, it was the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art; since then, it has been the most beautiful gallery of contemporary art in Britain. But not any more. For at 4.30 on Sunday, to the shock and grief of all who love it, this great gallery closed. | You walked to the art through the park, brisked along by the scented air. Or you came across it by chance, after rolling down grassy banks. Generations of children saw it, many for the first time, because Inverleith House was hearth and home to the Botanics, simply the place where everyone gravitated. From 1960 until 1986, it was the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art; since then, it has been the most beautiful gallery of contemporary art in Britain. But not any more. For at 4.30 on Sunday, to the shock and grief of all who love it, this great gallery closed. |
| On Wednesday, the RBGE management decided to close the building as a gallery. Nobody seems to have any idea what it will now become. Five days notice against 56 years of art is an outrage in itself – there has been no public consultation, no forewarning, the entire future schedule axed in an instant, along with all of its profound potential – followed by some egregious nonsense about finding other places among the rhododendrons to show whatever can be shown, which certainly won’t be Oskar Kokoschka. | On Wednesday, the RBGE management decided to close the building as a gallery. Nobody seems to have any idea what it will now become. Five days notice against 56 years of art is an outrage in itself – there has been no public consultation, no forewarning, the entire future schedule axed in an instant, along with all of its profound potential – followed by some egregious nonsense about finding other places among the rhododendrons to show whatever can be shown, which certainly won’t be Oskar Kokoschka. |
| And it won’t be any of the tremendous artists whose work so many of us have witnessed here for the first time. I will never forget seeing the American painters Agnes Martin and Joan Mitchell here, the serenity of the former and the horticultural abundance of the latter so perfectly enhanced by the botanical surroundings. The first and best William Eggleston show in Britain was here (only now has the National Portrait Gallery caught up with this master US photographer). Inverleith House has had more shows by Turner prize nominees and winners than other British gallery apart from Tate Britain itself. | And it won’t be any of the tremendous artists whose work so many of us have witnessed here for the first time. I will never forget seeing the American painters Agnes Martin and Joan Mitchell here, the serenity of the former and the horticultural abundance of the latter so perfectly enhanced by the botanical surroundings. The first and best William Eggleston show in Britain was here (only now has the National Portrait Gallery caught up with this master US photographer). Inverleith House has had more shows by Turner prize nominees and winners than other British gallery apart from Tate Britain itself. |
| But Creative Scotland pulled its funding for Inverleith House two years ago and the keeper of the RBGE has said that the institution now prefers to concentrate on botanical studies – as if it did not already have a massive horticultural centre, stuffed with retail opportunities, quite apart from the magnificent gardens themselves. And before you imagine that Creative Scotland is thriftily withdrawing some extravagant sum, consider that its total funding in the 22 years since 1994 has been a tiny £1.5m. They give almost half of that amount to the Fruitmarket Gallery every year. | But Creative Scotland pulled its funding for Inverleith House two years ago and the keeper of the RBGE has said that the institution now prefers to concentrate on botanical studies – as if it did not already have a massive horticultural centre, stuffed with retail opportunities, quite apart from the magnificent gardens themselves. And before you imagine that Creative Scotland is thriftily withdrawing some extravagant sum, consider that its total funding in the 22 years since 1994 has been a tiny £1.5m. They give almost half of that amount to the Fruitmarket Gallery every year. |
| Last week, the BBC arts departments in London and Bristol were also wiped out. These are the people who brought us Simon Schama’s Power of Art and Robert Hughes’s The Shock of the New, who made Andrew Graham-Dixon’s surveys of international art from Budapest to Saigon. Soon, there will be no staff BBC arts producers left in England (only the Glasgow department has survived). | Last week, the BBC arts departments in London and Bristol were also wiped out. These are the people who brought us Simon Schama’s Power of Art and Robert Hughes’s The Shock of the New, who made Andrew Graham-Dixon’s surveys of international art from Budapest to Saigon. Soon, there will be no staff BBC arts producers left in England (only the Glasgow department has survived). |
| The rationale is that arts programmes do not make a profit for BBC Studios, but arts programmes have never been profitable. They cost comparatively little to make, but they do not sell abroad like drama or reality television. So these venerable departments, which have nurtured so many talented film-makers and given us such brilliant insights into art, taking us up high to look into the eyes of a Giotto saint in Padua, taking us deep into the caves of Lascaux to look at leaping bison, will now be shut for ever. | The rationale is that arts programmes do not make a profit for BBC Studios, but arts programmes have never been profitable. They cost comparatively little to make, but they do not sell abroad like drama or reality television. So these venerable departments, which have nurtured so many talented film-makers and given us such brilliant insights into art, taking us up high to look into the eyes of a Giotto saint in Padua, taking us deep into the caves of Lascaux to look at leaping bison, will now be shut for ever. |
| With the disastrous decision to axe the art history A-level because – allegedly – not enough expert examiners can be found to mark the papers, we see another downgrading, another reduction in the opportunities to contemplate art. Who is to say that art history is less important than history? Why should the visual be demoted? Why is art not regarded as an expression of human experience in the same degree, for example, as literature? | With the disastrous decision to axe the art history A-level because – allegedly – not enough expert examiners can be found to mark the papers, we see another downgrading, another reduction in the opportunities to contemplate art. Who is to say that art history is less important than history? Why should the visual be demoted? Why is art not regarded as an expression of human experience in the same degree, for example, as literature? |
| To study art history at school, for me at least, was to look at vast enlargements of paintings in faraway museums that I might never visit and to understand more about life. To watch television cameras inch their microscopic way across a Bosch is to see almost more than one can in person (and almost more than the artist himself). But even these miracles of technology cannot transmit the experience of being in the gallery – of discovering that pictures are much bigger, angrier or more anxious, quieter, or more forceful, or simply infinitely greater than the image on the laptop conveys. Reproductions, as Hughes once wrote, are like shrunken heads compared to living people; the loss of a whole gallery is, by analogy, death. | To study art history at school, for me at least, was to look at vast enlargements of paintings in faraway museums that I might never visit and to understand more about life. To watch television cameras inch their microscopic way across a Bosch is to see almost more than one can in person (and almost more than the artist himself). But even these miracles of technology cannot transmit the experience of being in the gallery – of discovering that pictures are much bigger, angrier or more anxious, quieter, or more forceful, or simply infinitely greater than the image on the laptop conveys. Reproductions, as Hughes once wrote, are like shrunken heads compared to living people; the loss of a whole gallery is, by analogy, death. |
| Last week, Walsall council warned that it may close the New Art Gallery, Caruso St John’s purpose-built museum, with its celebrated collection of British art. The gallery’s founder argues that closure would be “both unethical and impractical… and would destroy the atmosphere of many surrounding communities”. Even as the blade dangles, savage cuts in the offing, the council has at least conceded the sorrowful truth of his words. | Last week, Walsall council warned that it may close the New Art Gallery, Caruso St John’s purpose-built museum, with its celebrated collection of British art. The gallery’s founder argues that closure would be “both unethical and impractical… and would destroy the atmosphere of many surrounding communities”. Even as the blade dangles, savage cuts in the offing, the council has at least conceded the sorrowful truth of his words. |
| But the finances at Inverleith House are not even an excuse. Director Paul Nesbitt, who has devoted 30 years to the gallery, is one of only two staff members (the Serpentine Gallery has more than 40). It is a wonder that curating, fundraising, invigilating, promoting and generally charming great international art to Scotland has not already killed him. And he has sensitively intermingled botanical art with work by contemporary artists such as Luke Fowler, Richard Wright and Douglas Gordon on the tiniest budget in Christendom. It would barely take a single philanthropist – or an honourable horticulturalist – to appear now and save it all. | But the finances at Inverleith House are not even an excuse. Director Paul Nesbitt, who has devoted 30 years to the gallery, is one of only two staff members (the Serpentine Gallery has more than 40). It is a wonder that curating, fundraising, invigilating, promoting and generally charming great international art to Scotland has not already killed him. And he has sensitively intermingled botanical art with work by contemporary artists such as Luke Fowler, Richard Wright and Douglas Gordon on the tiniest budget in Christendom. It would barely take a single philanthropist – or an honourable horticulturalist – to appear now and save it all. |
| We see art in time and place and always in the context of our own lives. We cannot see it otherwise, no matter how objective we might hope to be. To stumble upon paintings in such surroundings, and in such a gracious building as Inverleith House, was always to be doubly blessed. I doubt the RGBE has any moral right to close a gallery so important to our cultural life, and so perfectly constructed, with its high rooms and pristine large windows, to the display of art. And in so doing, it must understand that it has diminished not only our experience of art, but of life itself. | We see art in time and place and always in the context of our own lives. We cannot see it otherwise, no matter how objective we might hope to be. To stumble upon paintings in such surroundings, and in such a gracious building as Inverleith House, was always to be doubly blessed. I doubt the RGBE has any moral right to close a gallery so important to our cultural life, and so perfectly constructed, with its high rooms and pristine large windows, to the display of art. And in so doing, it must understand that it has diminished not only our experience of art, but of life itself. |