Culture

Any show that sets out to be definitive encourages brickbats and controversy. When Charles Baudelaire called in 1863 for a painter of modern life, he was seeking the kind of artist who would do justice to the realities of contemporary existence rather than escape them as was the habit of the French Salon painters of the time. Eventually he lit upon the elegant though minor graphic talent of Constantin Guys (1805–92), unable to appreciate the towering genius of Manet who in fact precisely exemplified the painter he was looking for. Such is the short-sightedness of even the greatest critics.

Ever since he burst on the scene in the 1960s Michael Sandle RA has been the rogue elephant of British art. At Ludlow Castle, a perfect venue for work whose subject is war, both metaphorical and actual, his artistic power is irrefutable. This is a superb show. John Powis, who owns the castle, should be praised for his enlightened patronage and Judy Cox for curating with such panache. The event marks the inauguration of an annual sculpture exhibition of international standard. The selection covers the past 30 years of Sandle’s output, 18 bronzes and one fibreglass, most of it done when he was professor of sculpture at two of Germany’s leading art schools.

There was a piece in the Telegraph last week claiming that nearly two thirds of people over the age of 50 are happier now than at any previous time in their lives. We know there are lies, damned lies and government surveys, and at first sight this seems to be one of the least persuasive polls ever. Who could possibly prefer to be in their fifties than in their twenties, feeling the ache in their bones, realising they have probably had most of the sex they are ever likely to get, and knowing that their personal date with mortality is moving ever closer? I was just about to cast the paper aside with a Meldrewish ‘I don’t believe it’ when I realised that, actually, absurdly, I really am happier now than I’ve ever been before.

It’s tempting to think we know everything about Henry Moore (1898–1986), household name that he is. As early as the 1950s, Percy Cudlipp was composing satirical ditties for magazines like Punch with rousing first lines such as ‘Don’t do any more, Mr Moore’, which suggests an over-familiarity perhaps bordering on satiety. But it’s all too easy to shoot down a leviathan — the most miserable shot can hardly miss. It’s far more profitable to consider Moore’s strengths and look at some of his real and substantial achievements. One of these was to make large-scale sculpture that looked at its best in the landscape. Moore always maintained that sculpture was an art of the open air.

In 1838 the Duke of Sussex was presenting the awards for drawing at the Society of Art, when the silver medallist failed to appear. His Grace complained that he was taking his time, until someone pointed out the nine-year-old Mr J.E. Millais hovering below his line of vision. The Duke patted the young prodigy on the head and told him to write if there was ever anything he needed. Millais took up the offer, but not to advance his artistic career. Instead, he begged the Duke for the restoration of fishing rights for himself and his brother William in the Round Pond. That the painter of all those bloodless Pre-Raphaelite beauties should have had a passion for blood sports is not such a contradiction as it may seem.