The Sacred Made Real

To the National Gallery to view this extraordinary exhibition of Spanish religious sculpture and painting from the seventeenth century: The Sacred Made Real.

As the title suggests, the works on show are religious images - and the majority have not come from art galleries, but from the churches where they remain objects of devotion.

For me the most striking are the sculptures which, according to the rigid craft demarcations of the era, were carved by one artist and later painted by another.

The aim was to create an almost theatrical illusion of reality, which would have been enhanced by the dramatic lighting of the space for which the works were created.

And, of course, the overall intention was to evoke contemplation, awe and sympathy in the viewer, thus inviting him or her to deeper devotion.

The subject matter is uniformly dark: friars contemplate the cross, a hooded Francis of Assisi gazes at a skull, and the head of John the Baptist lies on its plate, every sinew and artery of the severed neck rendered with surgical accuracy.

And then there are the images of Christ's passion: Jesus stands flayed and bleeding; he hangs dying upon the cross; or, as shown above, he lies stark and dead.

The message, expressed with brutal clarity, is of the human, physical reality of Christ's suffering and death: Ecce Homo - behold the man.

The effect, for me, in the darkened rooms of the Sainsbury Wing, was powerful, horrifying and, well, all a bit too much.

I guess it must be to with the presentation of these fearful images in isolation from the story that led up to them - and of the subsequent' third-day' event which transfigures them.

Without the context, the show seemed oppressive, gruesome and deeply morbid - an upmarket chamber of horrors.

Shaw thing

George Shaw was born in 1966 in the Tile Hill district of Coventry, which continues to be the subject of a remarkable series of paintings.

Shaw paints on board, using old-fashioned Humbrol enamel paints, creating a surface of rich luminosity that, in my view, is impossible to reproduce faithfully on paper or on screen.

I discovered Shaw by accident when I dropped in at Birmingham's Ikon Gallery some years ago and discovered a major exhibition of his work. Big impact.

The images seem bathed in light and, always devoid of human figures, seem to invite us to view these very 'ordinary' council-estate scenes with fresh eyes.

Rather like the painter Jeremy Duncan, Shaw seems eager to turn aside from subjects that are traditionally associated with landscape painting: the seashore, the mountains, the garden, the country estate.

And in so doing, he challenges us to look again, to question our definitions of 'beautiful' and, perhaps, to extend our understanding of the sacred...

The trees are singing

To Hereford and the Cathedral Close, to view Jemma Pearson's rather wonderful sculpture of Edward Elgar who lived in the town shortly before WW1.

Cycling attire has come a long way since the de rigeur Edwardian costume of tweedy jacket, plus-fours and boots. One feels that, compared to contemporary Lycra, EE's stylish 'look' has much to recommend it.

In the manner of the new Betjemann sculpture at St Pancras Station, this is very much a 'site specific' work - with the cathedral dramatically involved as Elgar, manuscript notebook in hand, gazes up at its tower.

Pearson has lovingly recreated Elgar's splendid Sunbeam cycle, which he nicknamed 'Mr Phoebus'. Such is the attention to detail that one can identify the saddle as manufactured by Brooks, the ne plus ultra of cycle saddlery.

I'm more than a little excited to discover that, in terms of personal comfort a-wheel, the great composer and I have so much in common.

The plinth carries the inscription: 'This is what I hear all day - the trees are singing my music - or am I singing theirs?'

Later I was delighted to discover that the cycle shop, pictured below continues to flourish close by. This unashamedly old-fashioned establishment may well have been trading in Elgar's day.

It was certainly going strong in 1987 when I purchased from it my Dawes Galaxy (complete with Brooks saddle).

Said bike has just been through its umpteenth service and is girding its bottom bracket for a major ride in 2010. Watch this space.

Chuff or chop?

A recent visit to the National Gallery prompted a recollection of the basics of art appreciation.

Years ago I was in the NG shop, browisng the postcards - as one does. (You see all the pictures in the collection without the bother of traipsing around the vast building.)

To my right is a mother with her young son - about five years old.

He's staring intently at a couple of cards and is clearly in an agony of indecision.

Meanwhile his mother is losing patience: 'Come on, make up your mind. You can have one card. Now decide - the steam train, or the beheading....'

I haven't noticed the tall man browsing quietly to my left. He, like me, appreciates the little boy's dilemma.

He's less restrained than me. I hear him murmur (deep New England tones): 'Tough choice, kid...."

The works of art under consideration are shown above.

Light

This is one of my favourite nativity images: light and darkness, amazement and mystery, peace and disturbance, heaven and earth.

A tiny, naked incandescent baby bathes his young mother in dazzling light, the illumination shared by a group of small, excited angels and by two attentive animals.

Joseph, rapt and still, watches from the shadows. All is peace and adoration.

But outside on the hillside, it's a different story as the shepherds desert their little fire to gaze in wonder at a single, vibrant angel, who chooses them, the poorest of the poor, to be the first to hear the news.

The picture was created by Geertgen and may be seen in the National Gallery, London.

I wish you a joyful Christmas.

Greene Street 2, New York City

An unremarkable street at the rougher end of the city. A boarded-up doorway. Some random graffiti. Not much here for the artist or the poet?

Fortunately, artist Jeremy Duncan's eye doesn't work like that.

He pauses and invites us to share a moment of stillness and strange, unexpected harmony.

Awareness of urban grunge subsides as morning sunlight picks out the elegant classical column, a remnant of the street's former dignity.

Its jagged shadow draws the eye to the delicate blue of the boarding, and then to the doorway, with its single window, the focus of the picture: intriguing and mysterious.

Suddenly, a scene of utter ordinariness becomes extraordinary as light, silence and stillness reveal its 'hidden' beauty.

For me, the picture speaks powerfully of the 'holiness' of the everyday, human world: damaged and fragile, but also resilient, graceful, enduring. And always worth a second look, a second chance.

In short, the picture is a sort of everyday epiphany.

You can see more of Jeremy Duncan's work via the dealer Waterhouse and Dodd.

You can buy prints via EasyArt.

Devoted

The spectrum of music inspired by the Christian gospel is, praise the Lord, of infinite variety.

At one end are, I guess, Handel's Messiah, Bach's St Matthew Passion and Gregorian chant.

And at the other....?

Well, never having heard the musical content of this album, I can't judge this arresting contribution from Uncle Les and Aunt Nancy, not to mention the elegantly dressed Randy.

But the cover art is, I feel, truly, truly special and, in its way, rather glorious.

And I'm certain that, out there somewhere, are middle-aged people with reason to be grateful to Les, Nancy and wee Randy.

And, en passant, a prophecy: I predict that within five years Nancy's upswept specs will once again be the height of chic....

Thanks to Brett for bringing this to my attention.

Bequest stop

Within a couple of miles of the centre of our teeming capital city is a sylvan retreat of woods, meadows and ponds: Hampstead Heath.

Occasionally the HB has the privilege of acting as a tour guide to overseas friends who are visiting London.

Hampstead, both the village and the Heath, never fail to impress. On a clear day there is nothing to beat the view of the whole of London from Parliament Hill.

It's a genuine 'earth has not anything to show more fair' moment.

Here Mr G is posing in front of Kenwood House on the northern edge of the Heath.

Once the home of the Guinness family, it was bequeathed to the nation as a free-entry art gallery housing the family's far-from-insignificant collection. Small but unquestionably exquisite: there's a perfect Vermeer and one of the greatest of the Rembrandt self-portraits - and much, more more.

Small but exquisite...

No surprise to learn that Mr G is particularly keen on small-scale works of art.

Today his (and the HB's) spirits were lifted by the arrival of postcard depicting the gorgeous Wilton Diptych, to be seen in the National Gallery. (The two hinged panels are roughly the size of a medium-sized computer screen.)

It's one of those very special objects that makes one stop and simply gaze and gaze.

The unknown artist has created an image of ravishing beauty, the colours undimmed by the passage of 600 years.

The young King Richard II, flanked by his patron saints (John the Baptist, Edward the Confessor and, get the pointy red shoes, Edmund the Martyr) is granted a vision of a blue and gold heaven, where the child Jesus leans forward to bless the earthly boy king.

Anyone familiar with Shakespeare's depiction of Richard II might be forgiven for wondering if the Bard had caught sight of this piece, so closely does it chime with his exquisite, poetic, 'self-iconising' monarch.

In London soon? Drop in to the Sainbury Wing and allow your senses and spirits to be entranced by this glorious treasure - sole property of you and me!

Edward Ardizzone

As a boy I was a dedicated devourer of Puffin Books. So it was only a matter of time before I fell under the spell of the illustrator Edward Ardizzone.

Ardizzone's pen-and-ink drawings, mostly black line only, manage to suggest so much through a minimalist, loose, seemingly speedy technique.

Long ago I decided I'd like to buy an orignal drawing and wrote to the artist, receiving this charming response.
I contacted his agent and bought the picture shown here. It's from The Godstone and the Blackymor, an eccentric little volume of Irish memoirs by TH (Sword in the Stone) White, long out of print.Mr Ardizzone died shortly afterwards. I am very proud to own this tiny example of his work.

Want to know more? Take a look at the Imperial War Museum's archive of Ardizzone's career as a War Artist.

Bearable

A card with a Rupert Bear illustration provoked waves of nostalgia for both Gnome and HB.

At Christmas, one hoped to receive an 'annual' (Eagle, Swift, Dandy, Beano, Sooty and Sweep) - but the uber-annual was always Rupert.

I adored them, mainly I think for the strange 'otherness' of Rupert's world: like ours, and yet so unlike. The delicate colours, the homely interiors, the weird machinery - all were enchanting. Hurrah for illustrator Alfred Bestall.

Then there was the layout. Extraordinary when you think about it. Four pictures, each with a rhyming couplet beneath. Expanded prose text at the bottom in two columns. A helpful heading at the top, plus two tiny vignette figures top right and left. So you get the narrative in three forms: pictures, couplets, prose. The pattern never varied. And I've never seen it used apart from for Rupert.

Beyond shameless

'So, Mr Gnome, was the shyness-corrective therapy successful?'

'Er, yes!'

Songlines

Roughly eighty singers raised the roof of Leamington Spa's parish church last night performing celebratory songs from around the world - to a house-full audience.

Conducted by the charismatic Bruce Knight (festively costumed as a shepherd, foreground above), this is no ordinary stand-and-deliver choir.

For a start, there are no auditions and no printed music is used. The singers learn by listening, repeating and gradually building up the layers of harmonies under Bruce's cheerful, encouraging guidance.

Many of the singers have never sung in a choir before, having had negative experiences at school or eleswhere.

The HB, an enthusiastic recent convert, never believed that singing was something he could even begin to think of enjoying. It was definitley for 'other people' - the musical ones.

But Bruce's choir is based on the inclusive principle: 'If you can walk, you can dance; if you can talk, you can sing.'

Liberating, or what?

Finding a voice, and liberating his inner bass has been one of the top experiences of 2007.

By the way, the concert raised money for the excellent devlopment charity WATER AID.

Monday morning boost

Some like to be soothed into the start of a new working week. But not Mr Gnome. He relishes some cerebral stimulation.

Hence his enjoyment of AN Wilson's weekly World of Books column in the Daily Telegraph.

It's the equivalent of a brisk tutorial with this interesting, provocative writer.

This week, for instance, Mr W recommended four worth-reading titles on the much-discussed topic of fundamentalism.

As a result, Mr Gnome is urging the HB to read The Islamist, by Ed Husain.

Discursive Mr Wilson also managed to comment on the popular telly series Cranford, casually dropping in a daringly incendiary remark, particularly so given the fact that he's writing in the DT.

Did he make a controversial statement about Islam?

Nope. Far, far more shocking.

He outed himself as a shameless non-fan of Cranford's star turn, actress Judi Dench.

In fact, he was really rather rude about the semi-divine Dame.

Rude about Dame Jude? And in the Telegraph?

What next?

Doris! For goodness sake....

Always eager to keep up with kulcha and literature, Mr Gnome made a point of tuning in to tonight's Radio 4 interview with Nobel prize-winning novelist Doris Lessing.

Well on in her eighties, the determinedly grouchy Mrs Lessing was firing on all cylinders, making the most of a day that had clearly begun with an exit from the wrong side of her bed.

Was she honoured, delighted, humbled, thrilled to have received the world's most prestigious literary prize?

Was she heck.

Dismal Doris took every opportunity to snipe at the 'stupidity' of the prize givers, at the inanity of her citation and at the overblown swankiness of the whole jolly jamboree.

Mr Gnome was a wee bit taken aback.

Of modest literary pretensions, Mr G adores all forms of 'positive feedback'.

He still glows from his teacher's 'VG' scribbled in the margin of a schooldays essay.

What, he muses, could provide more positive feedback than a Nobel Prize?

The Archangel Gabriel dropping in at your next book-signing session?

Consequently, he's bemused and befuddled at La Lessing's seeming ingratitude.

And - don't faint, Doris - he has removed her name from his 'must read' list.

In short, a very big 'Tsk!' indeed for this delightfully grumpy old lady.

By the way, the prize is worth a cool-ish £763,000.

Hurrah for Matt...

Mr Gnome usually starts the day with a laugh thanks to the Daily Telegraph's peerless cartoonist Matt.

Morning after morning, Matt's splendidly deadpan figures come at the news with an eccentric originality that's frequently laugh-aloud funny.

Matt

Plinth Charming...?

Usually eager to 'accentuate the positive', Mr Gnome is uncharacteristically disappointed by a new piece of public art.

This less-than-life-size portrait bronze stands on the South Bank of the Thames in central London, immediately outside the National Theatre.

It shows the great actor Sir Laurence Olivier as the Prince of Denmark, in costume and pose drawn from the 1940s film of Hamlet, which he also directed.

Mr G says: 'From my point of view, this work misses every target, capturing none of the energy, stature, presence and sheer dramatic oomph of this remarkable thesp - and it makes nothing of its site. Bland-tastic, really.'

Pop to Mr G's post on the new statue of John Betjeman at St Pancras Station for a cheering-up view of a tip-top piece of public art.

Mr Gnome scrubs up

On drab winter days Mr G cheers himself up with memories of his summer ramblings, which this year included an August outing to the Glyndebourne opera festival.

He relished the tea room (top notch), the restaurant (spiffing), and the glorious gardens with their artful air of laid-back carelessness that belies year-round labour.

In fact he enjoyed every aspect apart from the music.

The opera was Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, in a production that had the reviewers salivating as they dished up the superlatives.

In the past, Mr G has throughly enjoyed the epic, surprisingly tuneful journey of Herr W's Ring Cycle (sounds like something from Hotpoint?), which comprises buckets of human interest and quite a few laughs along the way.

Tristan is, by contrast, a chuckle-free zone - and a massively long sit-down. The few passages of gorgeous music are separated by hours of doomy musings by the desperately un-engaging eponymous lovers. 'Oh, get on with it!' Mr G was tempted to mutter.

Worst of all for cheery, positive thinker Mr Gnome, the show is saturated in negativity: death, doom and desperation are its key themes.

Mr G hopes to return to Glyndebourne one day - possibly for an invigorating dose of Puccini....

For Mr G's video experiment, go to archive and check his very first post....

Mr G's art is in the right place

Mr Gnome likes to think he has an 'eye' for talent. So when a young artist sends him samples of his or her work, Mr G becomes very excited.

He says: 'Here I am admiring some delightful drawings by Paddy from Cheshire. Paddy has chosen a tip-top subject for his work: ME!

'I feel very honoured to have been captured on paper with such energy and confidence. Hurrah for Paddy!'

Mr Gnome rather likes the idea of being a 'muse' for artists - and is open to all offers.

Fissure king....

Mr G recently visited the Shibboleth 'installation' at the Tate Modern gallery in London.

Not usually a fan of the arty 'i-word' (to Mr G, 'installation' means a new back boiler), he found himself hugely enjoying this zig-zagging fissure in the floor of the vast turbine hall.

He says: 'The brochure spoke of deep meanings connected to notions of boundaries, exclusion, imperialism and goodness-knows-what.

' Whatever! I simply relished the way it broke down barriers between complete strangers - everyone was talking. Good crack.'