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Friday 9 January 2009

Family business

Painting Family: The De Brays, Master Painters of 17th Century Holland
Dulwich Picture Gallery, until 5 October

Cecil Collins — A Centenary Exhibition
Monnow Valley Arts Centre, Middle Hunt House, Walterstone, Nr Abergavenny, Herefordshire, until 14 September

Room 5 features Joseph and Dirck de Bray and is the best so far, with a group of flower paintings which come as a relief after so many clumsy figure compositions. But these still-lifes (even Dirck’s rabbit and falcon and Joseph’s pickled herrings) are overshadowed by the paintings in the last room — the group portraits of the regents and regentesses of the alms houses and hospitals by brother Jan. Here are four paintings which really invite comparison with Franz Hals. (This seems to be the aim of the whole exhibition.) They are not as fine as Hals, but they’re remarkably good nonetheless. I particularly liked the earliest: ‘Regents of the Children’s Almshouse in Haarlem’ (1663), greyer and more mysterious than the rest. In the middle of the group hangs a rather overblown and melodramatic historical subject, ‘The Judgment of Zaleucus’, emphasising the worst points of the de Brays — their facility and industry notwithstanding.

So a revealing show, and only good in parts. The gallery was almost empty when I was there (cruel August, no doubt). Painting Family is not a great exhibition but it is redeemed by its last room, and it certainly deserves more attention. Definitely worth a visit, if only to hone one’s powers of discrimination.

The work of Cecil Collins (1908–89) is of another order altogether. Collins was part shaman and part showman, both in a very English way (not to be confused with the continental antics of a Joseph Beuys, for instance), and a visionary painter of some power. There are those who devalue his art because they deprecate his seigneurial behaviour (what’s wrong with a penchant for rich lady students?) and question his sincerity. There are others who say he stole all his best ideas (notably the whole concept of the Fool) from his wife Elisabeth. This is blatant nonsense, though I’ve no doubt that the gentle and talented Elisabeth was a constant support and inspiration to him. I first saw images by Collins 30 years ago and their strange magic made an instant appeal which has not only lasted but was even confirmed by the interview I conducted with the artist in 1988. At his best, Collins was an original, an English mystic who made images of potent beauty.

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