SAY SO

Apart from usual London summer thundery shower-dodging, I've been at Tate Britain just long enough to walk through the current tourist-orientated show A Painting of Britain -- done in collaboration woith a BBC TV series fronted by the able old broadcaster David Dimbleby who can improvise nicely in front of the camera sometimes. Well, yes, it's a filled to the brim collection of good landscape painting c 1750 to present --but mainly 19th century -- so the occasional sidetrip to Hamish Fulton doesnt annoy the customers too much. Also full to the brim of customers even on a weekday, which makes viewing of smaller items hung close together -- the excellent watercolours -- like walking up Oxford street on Xmas Eve. Sharp elbows required. I caught a glimpse of a very nice Francis Towne waterfall in his best manner -- acquired by the Tate with the Oppe collection. & a great Girtin.

In a show that was designed to be illustrations to a broad history of the industrial revolution & landscape it is necessary to remember that the illustrations [paintings] aren't just handy historical footage for TV -- & to hunt for the pick of the paintings. Of course I got a bit battered trying to stand still to look at Constable's Chain Pier at Brighton, which is pretty good throughout it's complications of foreshore, sea and distant houses, and really takes at least ten minutes maybe quarter of an hour to take it all in.

The Dunedin 'Towne' must be J W Abbott -- I saw one v like it at Sotheby's last week in a v good sale of water-colours -- Edward Lear's v prominent in it, about a dozen of them, prices from £2000 for bl & wh, & as soon as there was a spot of colur £3000 upwards -- the bl & whites were often preferable -- also a rich sunset by Sam Palmer, Venetian William Callow, many v good things...

Next door, almost, at Chappell's, I bought some 1920s 'Fables' by Martinu and played one of their Yamaha electronic pianos for an hour. But not feeling well and not playing well, almost certainly the MSG filled seasoning mother's cook used. She crumbled up the 'chicken stock' cube and sprinkled it on the rice.

The Joshua Reynolds show was superior -- very nice selection of paintings -- all the best -- tho the condition is variable after 200 years -- faded 1760s -- bitumen rivers [I guess that's what it is] in the under painting of several of the later ones. The whole effect was not good -- almopst ruined by the usual glamorous overlighting and its inevitable bad bad shine -- manoeuvring to see paintings was necessary. There were a few I hadnt seen before, an early self-portrait done in Rome and some I hadnt seen for a long time. Enjoyable. The show was arranged by types of sitters -- so it was all about biogrpahies and personalities and their presentation as 'celebrities' -- an interesting idea, Reynolds as early massager of media celebrities in the first age of newspapers. I liked that, but again there was little regard for the way he shaped this out of Van Dyck [nobility origin of bourgeois portrait] and contemporary French [& Italian] portraiture. & then there is the way his military portraits are models for Gros -- In short, the history of art is depleted as long as it forgets it is work in a medium. How tiresome I must sound, saying the same thing every day.

I'm going back for some more today -- before the Wimbledon men's semi-finals.