SIX
months after a survey of Australian art opened at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, see side bar, an exhibition of British art from that institution is due to open at
Bendigo Art Gallery. It is unlikely, though, that Genius and Ambition - the show
of “diploma works” by academicians of the exclusive art society - will be
subject to the same critical drubbing that greeted Australia when it opened in
London last September.
Charles Saumarez Smith, the dapper secretary and chief executive of the
RA, says he was surprised at the vitriol heaped on the exhibition by two
prominent London critics in particular. He believes the antipathy was motivated
by “old-fashioned, reactionary cultural prejudice”.
“I
think a small number of critics wrote with unusual and distasteful vehemence,”
he says, referring to Waldemar Januszczak of The Sunday Times and Brian Sewell
of the London Evening Standard. “I thought their reviews were exceptionally and
unhelpfully unpleasant.”
The
Bendigo exhibition is not a survey of two centuries of British art but a display
of paintings, sculpture and drawings from its collection.
Among the artists
represented are Reynolds, Gainsborough, Turner, Constable and Millais.
Stylistically, it traces an art history from 18th-century academicism to
romantic landscapes, Victorian narrative pictures, orientalism and society
portraits.
It
includes a bust of “mad” King George by Italian-born Agostino Carlini, several
Constable landscapes such as A Boat Passing a Lock, below, Victorian classicism by
Lawrence Alma-Tadema and John William Waterhouse, and depictions of the leisured
classes at play by John Singer Sargent. “Many people do not know, even in
(Britain), that it is still a private institution run by a council of
academicians,” says Saumarez Smith. “Every academician has to give one work, and
those works, historically, have provided a series of very important
works.”
The RA
was established by decree of George III in 1768, and is unlike other art
museums, being a private organisation not reliant on government funds. It has
historically had three roles: as an art school, an exhibitor and an artists’
club. Originally, it admitted only 40 academicians at any time; the roll was
later expanded to 80.
The
unique position of the RA gives it an independence not enjoyed by some other
public collections. The 1997 exhibition Sensation, for example, could not have
been held at the Tate, for example. The showcase of fashionable “Young British
Artists” was from the collection of Charles Saatchi; a public gallery would not
have given such prominence to a single collection because the exposure tends to
augment market value. (This was the reason the National Gallery of Australia
cancelled the show in 1999.)
Reynolds’s allegorical painting Theory, of 1779, may be emblematic of the
RA’s origins and founding principles, not least because Reynolds was its first
president. It was painted for the ceiling of New Somerset House in London, one
of the RA’s several homes before its permanent move to Burlington House in
Piccadilly, and shows a classical female figure in billowing drapery, mounted on
a cloud. She holds a scroll of parchment as a symbol of learning.
Reynolds in his famous Discourses at the RA lectured on the primacy of
intellect over intuition in art. Students were instructed to draw the forms of
classical sculpture before they were permitted to draw from life.
“Reynolds through his Discourses was one of the key influences on the
academy,” Saumarez Smith says. “They became a great textbook of so-called
academy theory, which is the idea that history painting was the greatest form of
painting and landscape was a secondary genre. You learned to draw through hard
work, observation, close attention to classical precedent and learning by
copying from the great masters. Reynolds was the person who described and
articulated the traditions of academic practice in a way that was dominant for a
hundred years.”
Academicism fell out of fashion as art movements such as impressionism
and modernism presented dynamic new ways of seeing the world. A glance at the
list of current academicians reveals how the RA has evolved: among them are
sculptor Anish Kapoor, David Hockney and installation artist Tracey Emin, who in
2011 was appointed professor of drawing.
From
its beginnings, the RA has hosted an annual exhibition to show the work of the
artists of the day. It’s a popular event for Londoners and visitors, where a
stroll around the galleries is usually followed with a glass of
Pimm’s.
Australian artists were showing at the RA from the late 19th century,
among them Robert Dowling, Nicholas Chevalier, Rupert Bunny, George Lambert,
Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts. By the early 1920s, there was sufficient
interest for a survey show of Australian art.
The
exhibition of Australian art of 1923 presented 212 works by Lambert, Streeton,
Phillips Fox and others, attracting 28,000 people across 27 days.
Genius
and Ambition picks up the connection by including paintings that were once shown
in London. Many of these works have been lent from Australian collections, and
include the Victorian social commentary of Chevalier’s Weary, Lambert’s dandyish
Self-portrait with Gladioli and English landscapes by Streeton.
Saumarez Smith says last year’s show of Australian art at the RA was long
overdue, being 90 years since the 1923 exhibition. It attracted a “perfectly
respectable” 125,000 people. “I was incredibly pleased we did it,” he
says.
“I’ve
always been, like a lot of British people, incredibly impressed by the quality
and interest of Australian art. I think it should be better known in this
country.”
Apart
from the scorn of some British critics, several Australian gallery-watchers had
reservations about the show, saying it aimed to be too inclusive and lacked
focus.
Saumarez Smith, due in Australia this week for the Bendigo opening, says
he will have a debriefing with the NGA’s Ron Radford, whose gallery helped
organise the show.
“We
wanted to be true to all aspects of Australian culture because, as is obvious,
these things come about not so often,” he says.
“It
remains an open question: would it have been better to do only Aboriginal art,
or historical art, or contemporary art?” He says he is open to the idea of
another, possibly more focused show of work by Australian artists.
By MATTHEW
WESTWOOD
Genius
and Ambition, Bendigo Art Gallery, Sunday to June 9.
Top Picture: The Council of the Royal
Academy selecting Pictures for the Exhibition, by Charles West Cope, 1875.
With thanks to The
Australian. (pay wall)
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