Nemo

We are told that last Friday evening’s blizzard, known as Nemo, was a once-in-a-century event. Well, yes, but notice how many of these we seem to be getting nowadays. I have never experienced anything remotely like it. Here in New Haven, a fraction more than thirty-four inches of snow fell in twenty-four hours, but neighboring Hamden got more than forty. Certainly the snow that drifted along the front of my house in the Westville neighborhood was much deeper than three feet, more like six. It is not difficult to describe the fundamental difference between an ordinary snow storm and a blizzard. Storm has always struck me as a misnomer. When it merely snows there is a delicious quiet, a softness, an atmosphere almost of calm not unlike the effect of a blanket—provided you are safely tucked up in bed, or sitting by the fire with a cup of tea and a good book. A blizzard, by contrast, has teeth, fangs, claws. The snow starts to behave like grit against doors and window-panes. It penetrates nooks and crannies. It scrapes and mauls. There is a howl in the wind, and a sinister air of real danger. Walking in a snow storm can be pleasant, if at times hard work. Trudging through a blizzard is hazardous. You cannot see. Your footing is at best uncertain. The cold is especially severe. You must seek shelter. Nothing better accounts for the practical purpose and life-saving rationale of the covered bridges of New England than a fully-fledged blizzard. On Saturday morning the impact of Nemo was almost overwhelming in its scale. Dozens of snow plows, emergency vehicles and cop cars lay abandoned in city streets like so many woolly mammoths. The streets were impassable, even on foot. Plucky citizens began to shovel, but as the city’s monster digging equipment began to carve single-lane canyons through the middle of the main arteries their efforts were largely annulled or even reversed because of the immense walls of snow thrown up on either side. On Monday it began to rain and, the drains being blocked with snow, the whole concoction began to settle into deep, frigid puddles, soon to become sullen floes of ice, exceedingly unhelpful. Still the city chugged ahead. The Governor temporarily lifted a ban on dumping snow into Long Island Sound because there really was nowhere else to put it. Now, nearly a week later, a small army of diggers, earth moving equipment and dump trucks are still loading up with immense quantities of snow, gradually clearing the streets and parking lots. The university was closed for classes on Monday and Tuesday, something that through 312 years is almost unheard-of. I must say that the citizens of New Haven exhibited extraordinary patience, forbearance, generosity, and good cheer amid the most trying circumstances. Frustrating though it is to be holed up for days on end, and to experience the onset of cabin fever, most people were philosophical—merely breathing silent prayers lest the snow and ice on the roof formed a destructive ice dam, or worse. The excellent Tony Maratea managed to carve me out a portion of my drive in which to park, and also a little path to the back door, but I have no idea how on earth he will clear the rest of it. Forget the snow-blower, this requires at least a Bobcat. In the meantime, we continue to install our exhibition, and have really only lost two working days as a consequence of the blizzard. Only two weeks to go, but I am sure we will get the job done.

More bill

Orpen’s bill from the Café Royal carries a distinctive monogram, the capital letter N beneath a crown. This haughty gesture recurs throughout the lavish interior decorations of the café, and, I fancy, embraces a degree of Gallic mischief. In 1865, Daniel-Nicolas Thévenon, a French wine merchant, established the Café Royal in extensive premises on the Crown Estate at the bottom of Regent Street, hard by Piccadilly Circus. He anglicized his name to Daniel Nicols, and by the end of the century his son and namesake took the Café Royal to new heights of opulence. Its cellars were famous for their size, distinction, and rarity. The Café Royal became one of the most fashionable establishments in the West End, and was frequented by artists and writers such as Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Rudyard Kipling, W. B. Yeats, Walter Sickert, Max Beerbohm, James McNeill Whistler, William Nicholson, Augustus John, and obviously William Orpen too. The character of the place embraced the dizzyingly high, expressed above all by its extravagant décor, but also the forthrightly low. Some of the early rules of boxing were first written down in the building, and contests were regularly staged there. No doubt this was something that drew Nicholson and John especially—both were connoisseurs of the boxing ring. From the vantage point of the 1920s and 1930s, when it was still going strong, the Edwardian Café Royal was recalled as so many charmed caverns, their gilding and encrusted ornamentation softened by thick blue cigar smoke, and the buzz of brilliant talk brightened further by the clack and shuffle of dominoes over marble. Through all of this, not unlike the flamboyant César Ritz, Daniel Nicols oversaw his palatial establishment with the flair and instinct for public relations that distinguishes a true impresario. He was the svengali of catering, a gentleman moreover eagerly sought after for preferred table reservations, or, in the case of social indiscretions, tables in quiet corners. His monogram refers unabashedly to that of Napoleon, but also implies no less imperial authority wielded over a West End café society that increasingly sought to distinguish itself from the starchiness of clubland, the inaccessibility of the Court, and from the rough and tumble of music hall entertainment.

The bill

Installation continues apace. This morning we unpacked, condition-checked, and hung the great self-portrait by Sir William Orpen entitled Myself and Venus that comes to us from the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At once I realized I have made an error in the relevant catalogue entry. The picture is very close to the artist’s nearly contemporaneous Self-Portrait (Leading the Life in the West) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which unfortunately cannot travel any more, and it contains the same conceit of the large, framed mirror facing the window of Orpen’s studio. In the New York painting Orpen showed various invitations, letters, opened envelopes, and other pieces of colored paper slipped between the vertical edges of the mirror and the wall, but in the Pittsburgh picture there is only one—which I took to be a newspaper clipping, perhaps a positive notice in one of the weeklies, or some such. That would be consistent with his steadily growing self-regard.

Instead I see now that this large piece of paper is a sizeable bill from The Café Royal, an itemized check, quite a long one, to which Orpen has added his notional and, I suppose, actual signature at the top, the souvenir of a bibulous evening spent with artist friends in that glamorous establishment at the bottom of Regent Street, hard by Piccadilly Circus, presumably in the opulent surroundings of the Domino Room. As it happens, we will have Charles Ginner’s view of the interior of that very room in the next bay but one, so this could not be a happier state of affairs. As well, the plaster cast of Orpen’s Venus is also present in his collegial group portrait from the Manchester City Art Gallery entitled Homage to Manet, but because in the Pittsburgh picture it is seen by Orpen reflected in the mirror with which he also sees himself it is naturally reversed. These two paintings will hang side by side, which is a rather neat curatorial stratagem, if I do say so.

The condominium again

The Anglo-French condominium or joint administration of the New Hebrides formed between 1904 and 1906 against a sinister backdrop. The southwestern Pacific islands of Melanesia had for decades attracted the attention of nineteenth-century Church of England, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Catholic missionaries, whose motives ranged from the genuinely enlightened to the expedient and nakedly sectarian. At the enlightened end was a deep concern for indigenous people who were target and victims of the criminal trade in indentured labor for the cane fields of Queensland and indeed many other places and purposes, a form of illegal serfdom that had existed since the 1860s to which successive colonial governments turned a blind eye. Annexation by Australia or by Britain was urged upon Whitehall therefore as a way of eradicating this form of modern slavery. At the same time it was also feared that if annexation did not take place the islands would be turned into a French penal colony, possibly worse even than Devil’s Island, and a further concern was obviously that the indigenous people would inevitably become francophone and therefore Catholic. Ironically considerable opposition to annexation came from the “White Australia” lobby, which was sufficiently developed at this date to argue for the abolition of the traffic in kanak labor not upon humanitarian grounds but rather for the purpose of racial purification. Beyond this hideous rationale, the White Australia lobby had already succeeded in persuading inter-colonial legislatures to enact impossibly high tariffs on maize, coconuts, and other crops from the New Hebrides so as to discourage trade with the coloured islanders, a state of affairs to which the French gleefully responded by encouraging and extending the flow of commodities back and forth between Port Vila and Noumea, the chief port in their thriving nickel and copper colony of New Caledonia. According to the veteran Scottish missionary Dr. John Gibson Paton, the New Hebridean islanders used to call themselves Queen Victoria’s children, and by 1904 were calling themselves the children of Queen Victoria’s son. No doubt they had long been encouraged to do so by British missionaries, but he thought annexation was in the best interests of the islanders, of the Commonwealth, and of the Empire, and that the proposed condominium was a thoroughly bad idea. Of course this view did not prevail in the end, and it is interesting to observe that the condominium was at first interpreted by the Conservative opposition to the Liberal government of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman at Westminster as a dangerous concession that undermined British imperial interests everywhere, particularly in the partly French-speaking colony of Newfoundland (not yet a part of Canada), and by the predominantly white dominions themselves as a potentially unwelcome threat to “progressive unity” between their interests and those of the imperial capital. Old debates can be extraordinarily revealing, and battle-lines over long-forgotten issues not necessarily easily comprehended. In these circumstances, and balancing these arguments against current orthodoxies, it is hard to know whether one would have been for or against the annexation of the New Hebrides, or indeed for or against the Anglo-French condominium. Fortunately the issue is unlikely to arise again in this particular form, although the Republic of Vanuatu, as the New Hebrides are now known, is seriously threatened by the gradual but inexorable rise in sea level, so the fate of its gentle Melanesian population may again claim the moral attention of the world.

The condominium

One of the most bizarre consequences of the Entente Cordiale of 1904, that set of friendly agreements between France and Britain mostly relating to the two nations’ colonial possessions all over the world, and especially those that abutted, was the establishment in 1906 of the “condominium” by which France and Britain jointly administered the New Hebrides. That island group in the South Pacific achieved independence in 1980 and has since been known as the Republic of Vanuatu. The first European encounter with the islands took place in 1605 when a Spanish expedition named them Espiritu Santo. Louis-Antoine de Bougainville “re-discovered” the locality in 1768, and Captain James Cook followed in 1774. Cook named the islands New Hebrides. The French and British showed little interest in the islands before the 1860s, and both laid claim to the New Hebrides in the 1880s, but with distinct lack of enthusiasm. The condominium effectively resolved this competition, and divided the New Hebrides into two separate but nevertheless intermingled communities—English- and French-speaking. For most of the remainder of the twentieth century this curious arrangement insured that there were two currencies circulating side-by-side in the same tills, two sets of immigration procedures for bemused visitors to choose between, two justice systems, two education systems, effectively two colonial governments, each exactly mirroring the other, but naturally reflecting the different methods of colonial administration practiced in London and Paris. The British and French each appointed a co-equal “resident” from the Foreign Office in Whitehall and from the Quai d’Orsay, and their staff on the ground in Port Vila emphasized dualism to the point of farce. Every European official in one residency had an opposite number in the other with whom he was required to consult but with whom he rarely agreed. The condominium thus shared jurisdiction over the postal service, for example, but postage stamps were either British or French, and paid for with pounds sterling or francs issued by the Banque de l’Indochine. Indigenous people could choose whether to be tried under the British common law or the French civil law. Nationals of one country could set up corporations under the laws of the other. In addition to these two legal systems, a third court existed to handle cases involving traditional Melanesian customs and usage. Further, Britain and France agreed that the judge presiding over this native court should be appointed by the King of Spain in order that he could also decide with impartiality certain cases in which the French and British judges’ opinions or even whole branches of law were in conflict. The origin of this otherwise inexplicable arrangement was picturesquely historical. As well, there were two prison systems to complement the two different “national” courts. The police force was technically unified but consisted of two co-chiefs and equal numbers of officers wearing different uniforms. Each half strictly alternated their duties and assignments. The Union Jack and the Tricouleur were raised each morning in perfect synchronization, and flew side-by-side. When one or the other had to fly at half-mast, the other gallantly followed suit. Language was not the only barrier to the operation of this crazy system—because all documents had to be translated once to be understood by one side, and the response translated back again for the other. Bislama creole created further complications, although for those who could speak it Bislama did form an informal bridge between the British and the French administrations. The condominium was further strained by the radically different purpose each country had for being in the New Hebrides in the first place. Britain’s colonization of these and many other islands in the South Pacific was driven not by the Colonial Office in Whitehall, which consistently resisted their gradual annexation, but rather by pressure placed on the imperial government through the 1870s and 1880s by Australian and New Zealand colonists with voracious commercial ambitions, and a corresponding need to prevent them from doing too much harm. The French, by contrast, took a much more active interest in the region, largely to protect their much larger commercial interests in New Caledonia, and in turn their even more profitable strategic presence in French Indo-China. We are still living with the consequences of that. During the post-war period the rationale for the Anglo-French condominium was somewhat extended by the dirty business of testing atomic devices in remote atolls, reefs, and islands—the anxious and increasingly paranoid quest for the H-bomb. However, that it worked for more than seventy years, or even at all, seems to me utterly remarkable.

The labels

A colleague of mine lately wondered whether, when (with luck) it manages to be serviceable or even good, the prose style of art museum curators falls short of the higher requirements of fiction because our vision is so often focused on things and not people. “Come, come,” I objected. “Our things are almost always made by people, used by people, shuffled back and forth from person to person. We write for real visitors, and the dots we try to join for them are invariably human.” He looked skeptical, and, to be honest, I think I know what he meant. It is increasingly unusual to pick up an exhibition catalogue and feel that the prose style of the essays and entries is worthy of the beautiful objects that they seek to illumine. It may even be the height of pomposity or presumption to hope that our more or less utilitarian words can ever live up to the quality of the corresponding works of art. Jargon is a problem, and so is longwindedness—in which I too often specialize. Even so, I have always approached the task of writing about art with some care and considerable aspiration, largely self-imposed. “This will do” is not in my vocabulary. The wall label, that most devious of genres, is necessarily brief. It must be as clear as crystal, and stimulate the shy, spotty kid, the professor emeritus, and everyone in between. There is no hope of making more than two or three basic points without overcrowding. I generally try to make at least one of these surprising, and reveal to our visitors a fact, even a trivial one, that would otherwise almost certainly not be apparent, and might cause them to see the work of art in a new light. Technical matters require delicate handling, which is, I think, one reason why we tend to avoid them. Yet it is certainly possible to allude clearly and succinctly in our labels to issues of studio practice or now-forgotten methods of manufacture. Indeed over the years I have found that our visitors generally appreciate these, and even tell me so. We are foolish to think that this sort of writing does not exercise the imagination, and impose upon us the high demands of English prose style. Yet I fear there are labels that fawn, labels that condescend, and labels that scream with dullness. There are labels that presume almost infinite knowledge, and labels that address our visitors as if they are ignorant seven year-olds. There are labels that purr repellently with self-importance. There are labels that badger and nag. There are labels that are shrill in their cheerfulness, and labels that would seem to have been drafted for internal circulation by a blind actuary. There are labels that swagger; labels that boast; labels that snigger, scold, or prevaricate; labels that sit determinedly on fences. Some labels are too bossy, too chatty, or too starchy. Some labels cause you indigestion; others send the visitor empty away. Some drip with the haughty disapproval of some obsolete matter of social usage; others (my own included) tend to embrace these with too much glee. What is a spat, a lorgnette, a pince-nez, or a chignon? Why should we care? I suppose the answer to that query is that behind each, and in this order, was a gentleman’s foot, a pair of deteriorating eyes, a nose with little indentations at either side of the bridge, or the skull of a woman, all long dead. And there can be no harm in nudging our visitors towards a little rumination about the habits of life that made such things useful or merely decorative in the first place, for before too long all of us will cease to need them also. Art and the cycles of life and death are indivisible; why then should we not see ourselves as budding novelists? And now I must go out and buy some toothpaste.

Hello Dolly

These last stages of the process of putting on a big exhibition are by far the most enjoyable. The book has arrived from the printers in all its splendor. The construction of plinths, pedestals, cases, and other items of bespoke furniture is complete. There is a rich array of power tools, trolleys, dollies, tape-measures, spirit-levels, extension cords, fresh light bulbs, and carts laden with all sorts of screws, nuts, bolts, washers, hooks, and other carefully organized fittings. Such smooth wall surfaces as are, in this High Modernist building, permitted a color are now painted the necessary number of coats, and our choice of a powdery, dry pale blue produces exactly the effect we had hoped for. The signage, object labels, and wall texts have been edited, designed, and are now in production—their careful arrangement around the galleries has been decided. The illuminated vitrines outside the front door are almost done. The sound program is finished, thanks to the efforts of our colleagues in Yale Media. The films have likewise been chosen, and await the installation of the monitor and DVD-player at the end of the exhibition. Templates defining the exact position of every object in the show have now been placed around the galleries, together with stickies that indicate the correct orientation of the accompanying labels. All that remains is for the nearly two hundred objects to arrive, one by one, or in groups according to lender. And then we shall open, and start talking about it to our visitors, non-stop.

Hanging a loan show is for the responsible curators somewhat different from re-hanging the permanent collection because under the terms of most if not all loan agreements the placing and installation of other institutions’ works of art must be carried out in the presence of their representatives, and obviously to their satisfaction. That responsibility almost always rests with the couriers who accompany the shipments. To that end much advance planning is necessary, and very little last-minute adjustment is possible. Still, there are decisions to be made when we go ahead install a borrowed object, once they have been condition-checked: an inch or two up or down, left or right. The unexpected or unforeseen effects of sight-lines or adjacencies and even the friendliness or otherwise of neighboring picture frames sometimes require a little attention. Other small problems inevitably arise, and can usually be solved to the contentment of all. The director must be kept apprised of progress, and her views naturally also taken account of. Certainly we are greatly assisted by the expertise and judgment of our out-of-house exhibition designer the excellent Stephen Saitas; by the meticulousness and indomitability of our registrar, together with the professionalism, steady hands, and shrewd opinions of our installation crew. Their views are always worth soliciting and usually right.

So, four weeks from now we will be up and running. The opening week’s festivities will be behind us. The exhibition will have taken on a life of its own. There is already an enormous 15-second advertisement running roughly every half hour or so on the CBS David Letterman screen at Times Square and Forty-Second Street, with an estimated audience of 1.5 millions. I wonder whether this will generate more than average foot traffic from New York. I hope so. Yale University Press, meanwhile, has high hopes for the publication, which in so many respects seems just now to converge strangely with the recent Downton Abbey phenomenon. It seems that something in the zeitgeist is focusing some attention on my beloved Edwardians. What a very satisfactory state of affairs!