Stuart Jeffries: Art Before Bubble Bath
The National Trust may make sound business decisions, but can we trust it with the nation's heritage? John Constable called it "the house of art". Turner, who painted smouldering views of the park and house at sunset, as well as watercolours of its interiors, flourished there.
John Constable called it "the house of art". Turner, who painted smouldering views of the park and house at sunset, as well as watercolours of its interiors, flourished there. Horace Walpole eulogised its spectacular carvings by Grinling Gibbons. Anthony Blunt, when director of the Courtauld Institute, was seconded to rehang the paintings and supervise restorations, such was the collection's importance.
True, the facade of the house is a thumpingly ugly grey terrace and the much-vaunted grand staircase has a laughable trompe l'oeil by a French artist who really should have been ashamed of himself, but let's not spoil the story. Petworth House in West Sussex reigns supreme among the stately homes of England. Or at least so its owners the National Trust would have it: in the guidebook it hails Petworth for housing the trust's finest collection of paintings and sculpture, reflecting the tastes of three generations of accomplished collectors. There are Van Dyck portraits, a large collection of Turners, several Reynolds and Gainsboroughs, a Claude, a Van der Weyden, Blakes, and two collections of sculpture, one Greek and one British. There's even a Titian or two. Better yet, unlike many stately homes, Petworth's collection is intact; nothing has been flogged off to pay for a new roof.
For a long time I'd been looking forward to visiting Petworth. But as soon as I went into the Somerset Room, the first gallery the visitor gets to see, I felt like lying down and crying. It was one of the worst displayed rooms of paintings I have ever seen. Jacob van Ruisdael's A Waterfall may be wonderful, but it was impossible to see anything but a silver streak of presumed water because the room was so gloomy. Other paintings were spectacularly ill lit, often by a row of three or four bulbs from above the frame, dropping ugly little pools of light distractingly along the tops of canvas but leaving the rest of the painting murky.
The guide conceded that there have been other complaints about the way the pictures are lit. It is, she told me, airily but not unpleasantly, very difficult to light paintings sympathetically. Well perhaps, but when I went to the National Gallery in London the following day, there were no such problems: the stewardship there of one of the world's greatest art collections seemed to be premised on allowing visitors to see the pictures properly. In every room at Petworth, by contrast, there was a disappointment lurking - great paintings badly lit or tucked virtually out of sight. In the North Gallery, for instance, there is a delightfully gloomy Fuseli hung so high above rows of other more mediocre works that you can't appreciate it at all.
There may be a historical justification for paintings being hung like this - in the 17th and 18th century, works were arranged densely in rows over walls - but that kind of historical authenticity, that law of the jumble, can only be justified by those who regard the paintings as less important than nodding suggestively to the way they were displayed back when.
In any case, such historical authenticity is not consistently applied at Petworth. Immediately in front of the house's West Front, there is a boring field leading down to the lake and Capability Brown's beautiful park. Why not rebuild the terrace garden that was laid out to the north and west of the house in the early 18th century and landscape that field as it was in 1730? Why does beauty count for nothing - in the case of the gardens as in the case of the art?
Can we trust the National Trust to look after our heritage, to conserve and display the nation's treasures well? The question has already been thrown into relief this year by the decision to build 191 new homes in the grounds of the Thames-side estate of Cliveden. Critics of the scheme to redevelop the site of the second world war Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital say the development contravenes the wishes of Lord Astor, who donated Cliveden to the National Trust to save it from being turned into what he called "a speculator's building estate". The National Trust replies that Astor also said that the hospital site should be used to generate income.
What are stately homes for? If Petworth is anything to go by, the display of art comes well behind dog walking and loading the car with NT lavender bubble bath and faux-rustic baseball caps. At Castle Howard recently, daytrippers were asked what they wanted from their visits. The overwhelming reply was not to see art or architecture, but to hear the gossip and anecdotes of the occupying family. As a result, Castle Howard guides now sometimes dress in period costumes and tell tales about weirdo aristos and their fruity lifestyles.
In these straitened post-9/11 years when tourism is on its uppers, this may be a sensible business plan (as may be the trust's property speculation at Cliveden), but as a justification for placing trust in the tastes of the grandees of the heritage industry it is rather less convincing. Perhaps we would do better to strip our country houses of their artworks and display them more sympathetically elsewhere.
True, the facade of the house is a thumpingly ugly grey terrace and the much-vaunted grand staircase has a laughable trompe l'oeil by a French artist who really should have been ashamed of himself, but let's not spoil the story. Petworth House in West Sussex reigns supreme among the stately homes of England. Or at least so its owners the National Trust would have it: in the guidebook it hails Petworth for housing the trust's finest collection of paintings and sculpture, reflecting the tastes of three generations of accomplished collectors. There are Van Dyck portraits, a large collection of Turners, several Reynolds and Gainsboroughs, a Claude, a Van der Weyden, Blakes, and two collections of sculpture, one Greek and one British. There's even a Titian or two. Better yet, unlike many stately homes, Petworth's collection is intact; nothing has been flogged off to pay for a new roof.
For a long time I'd been looking forward to visiting Petworth. But as soon as I went into the Somerset Room, the first gallery the visitor gets to see, I felt like lying down and crying. It was one of the worst displayed rooms of paintings I have ever seen. Jacob van Ruisdael's A Waterfall may be wonderful, but it was impossible to see anything but a silver streak of presumed water because the room was so gloomy. Other paintings were spectacularly ill lit, often by a row of three or four bulbs from above the frame, dropping ugly little pools of light distractingly along the tops of canvas but leaving the rest of the painting murky.
The guide conceded that there have been other complaints about the way the pictures are lit. It is, she told me, airily but not unpleasantly, very difficult to light paintings sympathetically. Well perhaps, but when I went to the National Gallery in London the following day, there were no such problems: the stewardship there of one of the world's greatest art collections seemed to be premised on allowing visitors to see the pictures properly. In every room at Petworth, by contrast, there was a disappointment lurking - great paintings badly lit or tucked virtually out of sight. In the North Gallery, for instance, there is a delightfully gloomy Fuseli hung so high above rows of other more mediocre works that you can't appreciate it at all.
There may be a historical justification for paintings being hung like this - in the 17th and 18th century, works were arranged densely in rows over walls - but that kind of historical authenticity, that law of the jumble, can only be justified by those who regard the paintings as less important than nodding suggestively to the way they were displayed back when.
In any case, such historical authenticity is not consistently applied at Petworth. Immediately in front of the house's West Front, there is a boring field leading down to the lake and Capability Brown's beautiful park. Why not rebuild the terrace garden that was laid out to the north and west of the house in the early 18th century and landscape that field as it was in 1730? Why does beauty count for nothing - in the case of the gardens as in the case of the art?
Can we trust the National Trust to look after our heritage, to conserve and display the nation's treasures well? The question has already been thrown into relief this year by the decision to build 191 new homes in the grounds of the Thames-side estate of Cliveden. Critics of the scheme to redevelop the site of the second world war Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital say the development contravenes the wishes of Lord Astor, who donated Cliveden to the National Trust to save it from being turned into what he called "a speculator's building estate". The National Trust replies that Astor also said that the hospital site should be used to generate income.
What are stately homes for? If Petworth is anything to go by, the display of art comes well behind dog walking and loading the car with NT lavender bubble bath and faux-rustic baseball caps. At Castle Howard recently, daytrippers were asked what they wanted from their visits. The overwhelming reply was not to see art or architecture, but to hear the gossip and anecdotes of the occupying family. As a result, Castle Howard guides now sometimes dress in period costumes and tell tales about weirdo aristos and their fruity lifestyles.
In these straitened post-9/11 years when tourism is on its uppers, this may be a sensible business plan (as may be the trust's property speculation at Cliveden), but as a justification for placing trust in the tastes of the grandees of the heritage industry it is rather less convincing. Perhaps we would do better to strip our country houses of their artworks and display them more sympathetically elsewhere.
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