I have just got back from a trip to the Tate Britain art gallery at which such wonders as the works of Turner, Monet and Whistler were on display. The Turner pictures of Venice, London and the Seine Valley of northern France bowled me over, as they do every time. One stray observation: many of the pictures brought out the effect on light of heavy air pollution. Monet was a master at this, particularly in his paintings of the Houses of Parliament. Some of the Monets and Whistlers were painted in the late 19th century when London’s smog levels were notoriously bad. As an adopted Londoner I am of course delighted that the chronic air pollution which once ravaged the lungs of our forbears has been reduced. I wish our modern artists could produce something as great as Turner, though.
I wish the environmentalists would appreciate the artistic value of smog…
Lemuel, somehow, I doubt they do! Anyway, there are always regular clouds to admire.
But it is a general point: why was 20th century art such crap compared to 19th and 18th?