View from a room

Without from Within
Djanogly Art Gallery, Nottingham, until 3 May

In 1935 Magritte painted a picture called ‘La Condition Humaine’ showing a mountain landscape seen from inside a cave. In the mouth of the cave an easel with a see-through canvas perfectly frames the view of a distant castle, while a fire burning inside reminds us of Plato’s famous allegory of human knowledge, comparing us to prisoners in a cave whose only perception of reality is based on shadows thrown by firelight on the walls. Painting, Magritte implies, is similarly partial (although presumably an advance on shadows for a cave-dweller).

Magritte’s picture hangs at the centre of Without from Within, a new exhibition at Nottingham University’s Djanogly Art Gallery tracing 100 years of views from indoors out. Starting with Spencer Gore’s ‘View from a Window’ (1909) and ending with George Shaw’s ‘Not Seeing Blossom’ (2010), it’s a saunter down a magical corridor whose 40 windows all open on to different prospects. They include Mediterranean hillsides (Raoul Dufy, 1926), Cornish beaches (Christopher Wood, 1930), snow-covered Buckinghamshire fields (John Nash, 1928), Sussex gardens (Charles Ginner, 1930–40) and Californian seascapes (David Hockney, 1968). Nothing unexpected, in other words, apart from the seaplanes bobbing outside Eric Ravilious’s ‘R.N.A.S. Sick Bay Dundee’ (1941).

The picture structures, too, are predictable. There’s not much room for variation with views through windows, other than shifting the angle of approach or tweaking the curtains, yet the subject has an enduring appeal to artists — and not only because it doesn’t rain indoors. For the philosophically minded, the window is a metaphor for painting itself; for the technically minded, glazing bars against the light represent the ultimate tonal challenge.

Of the 34 artists represented here, only Spencer Gore passes this test with flying colours.