Late in the 19th century, archaeologists digging in the Roman Forum discovered a lime kiln. It had been built to incinerate marble into an aggregate for the mortar for the new structures of the Middle Ages. Inside were statues of six Vestal Virgins, stashed together like firewood. Their arms had been snapped off.
The image came to mind as I read this excellent new book on the artist John Armstrong (1893-1975). In the 1930s he painted a series of ruined streets, with broken statues and broken monuments. They are bare and stark, and there is nothing like them in 20th-century British art. The first Armstrong I saw stopped me short: ‘Phoenix, 1938’, in Leeds City Art Gallery. When the guard turned I took a photograph, and still have the bright blue slide. I’d never heard of the painter.
In the 1930s he was best known as a designers of film sets and costumes for Alexander Korda, such as The Private Life of Henry VIII; Charles Laughton became a friend, and Armstrong painted the murals in his flat. Von Sternberg commissioned I, Claudius. ‘Have we any Vestal Virgins?’ ‘Yes’. ‘How many?’ ‘Six’ (The correct number, Armstrong recalled). ‘How are they dressed?’ ‘Chaste’. ‘That won’t do for me. I want 60 and I want them naked … and I want them on the set tomorrow morning.’
That was the same year as ‘Phoenix’. Lambirth writes interestingly on the relationship between film and art, noting that contemporary critics judged Armstrong’s work for the movies as a distraction from his talent. But ‘he never had any money except when he was working in film’, recalls his third wife, Annette.
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