Howard Jacobson’s anti-woke comments and taking of antisemitism seriously as a thing in this piece, contrasts with his recent missive for The Guardian, responding to talk of antisemitism following the Oct 7th massacre. The Guardian is woke and talk of Jews or Israel being hurt in any way is not the flavour of the moment. Accordingly, Jacobson obliged them with an article essentially saying “What’s all the fuss about? Nothing to see here.” It seems to me he takes whatever tone will go down well with the publisher and audience. Not impressive.
You must have read a different article than Jacobson’s Oct. 15 article in the Guardian, in which he says, among many other things; “That there was no pause even for provisional pity among the progressive supporters of Hamas in the west is scarcely less shocking than the pitiless acts themselves. Allow the fallacious narrative that Zionists dropped out of a clear blue sky to occupy someone else’s country, and you would still expect some inhalation of breath, some space for shock or sorrow, some admission that when they shouted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free”, even the most fervent anti-Zionists never envisaged freedom-taking in quite so bloody a form.”
Hardly “nothing to see here, move on.”
I stand corrected! I just checked and the article I meant was of April 7th 2018. I had assumed it was in response to the fallout from Oct 7th because the search engine offered it to me in that time-frame. I was mistaken. Your point is taken.
In fact Howard Jacobson spoke very movingly about antisemitism and 7/10 at a Jewish Chronicle conference not long after the massacre. It’s on youtube (JC’s channel).
Allison Barrows
5 months ago
Tate Modern, like the Guggenheim or MoMA in NY – and pretty much all such places – would be more accurately named Museums of People Who Can’t Draw.
I know where you’re coming from with that (having noted your past references in Comments), but i think it’s not quite right, for two related reasons; one an historical example, the other more general.
First, someone not familiar with Picasso’s oeuvre might look at many of his works post 1905 and think the same thing, when in fact he found it all too easy to draw (and paint) and his facility led him down a different path.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, what we see – and therefore draw – might be seen as a kind of straight-jacket from which to escape. Being taught to draw could be analogous to being indoctrinated in a particular view of the world in one’s younger years, before life provides us with a broader outlook.
That’s not in any way to denigrate drawing at all, simply to rebut the point that what we see in modern art museums is about the lack of ability to draw. I’m not enamoured with much of contemporary art, but that’s another matter entirely!
Agree with all your points Steve. I think the Guston exhibition article in ARTNews contains a few of Guston’s early work which shows tremendous ability to draw from an early age (Mother and Child was painted when he was only 17!). https://www.artnews.com/feature/philip-guston-who-is-he-famous-paintings-1202694977/
I have seen the show in North America which had several early paintings and his later cartoonish painting style is clearly a choice that reflects his response to evil.
All of the paintings in that link are poorly conceived and poorly rendered. The ‘Mother and Child’ is a poor imitation of Picasso’s 20s period, so not even original.
The cultural relativism which allows this sort of slapdash style over substance work to be vaunted in self-important retrospectives is the same cultural relativism which produces abominations like ‘woke’ culture
Picasso, and other great artists of the modern era, were first and foremost, superb draughtsmen whose line drawings and paintings of real life were genius. Their subsequent evolution as artists into more abstract forms built on their technical brilliance and their works are therefore credible and intellectually grounded.
Other ‘artists’ (like the bloke who won the 2023 Turner Prize yesterday, or the idiot who was lauded for painting with elephant dung) are bulldusters who have limited intellectual depth and whose crap is adulated by left-wing avant-garde Establishment elites who have money and spare time to waste. In contrast, the likes of Picasso could stand on their own two feet without the support of champagne socialists driving the nouveau art agenda.
These paintings are incredibly shit
Howard Jacobson’s anti-woke comments and taking of antisemitism seriously as a thing in this piece, contrasts with his recent missive for The Guardian, responding to talk of antisemitism following the Oct 7th massacre. The Guardian is woke and talk of Jews or Israel being hurt in any way is not the flavour of the moment. Accordingly, Jacobson obliged them with an article essentially saying “What’s all the fuss about? Nothing to see here.” It seems to me he takes whatever tone will go down well with the publisher and audience. Not impressive.
You must have read a different article than Jacobson’s Oct. 15 article in the Guardian, in which he says, among many other things; “That there was no pause even for provisional pity among the progressive supporters of Hamas in the west is scarcely less shocking than the pitiless acts themselves. Allow the fallacious narrative that Zionists dropped out of a clear blue sky to occupy someone else’s country, and you would still expect some inhalation of breath, some space for shock or sorrow, some admission that when they shouted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free”, even the most fervent anti-Zionists never envisaged freedom-taking in quite so bloody a form.”
Hardly “nothing to see here, move on.”
I stand corrected! I just checked and the article I meant was of April 7th 2018. I had assumed it was in response to the fallout from Oct 7th because the search engine offered it to me in that time-frame. I was mistaken. Your point is taken.
In fact Howard Jacobson spoke very movingly about antisemitism and 7/10 at a Jewish Chronicle conference not long after the massacre. It’s on youtube (JC’s channel).
Tate Modern, like the Guggenheim or MoMA in NY – and pretty much all such places – would be more accurately named Museums of People Who Can’t Draw.
I know where you’re coming from with that (having noted your past references in Comments), but i think it’s not quite right, for two related reasons; one an historical example, the other more general.
First, someone not familiar with Picasso’s oeuvre might look at many of his works post 1905 and think the same thing, when in fact he found it all too easy to draw (and paint) and his facility led him down a different path.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, what we see – and therefore draw – might be seen as a kind of straight-jacket from which to escape. Being taught to draw could be analogous to being indoctrinated in a particular view of the world in one’s younger years, before life provides us with a broader outlook.
That’s not in any way to denigrate drawing at all, simply to rebut the point that what we see in modern art museums is about the lack of ability to draw. I’m not enamoured with much of contemporary art, but that’s another matter entirely!
Agree with all your points Steve. I think the Guston exhibition article in ARTNews contains a few of Guston’s early work which shows tremendous ability to draw from an early age (Mother and Child was painted when he was only 17!). https://www.artnews.com/feature/philip-guston-who-is-he-famous-paintings-1202694977/
I have seen the show in North America which had several early paintings and his later cartoonish painting style is clearly a choice that reflects his response to evil.
All of the paintings in that link are poorly conceived and poorly rendered. The ‘Mother and Child’ is a poor imitation of Picasso’s 20s period, so not even original.
The cultural relativism which allows this sort of slapdash style over substance work to be vaunted in self-important retrospectives is the same cultural relativism which produces abominations like ‘woke’ culture
Picasso, and other great artists of the modern era, were first and foremost, superb draughtsmen whose line drawings and paintings of real life were genius. Their subsequent evolution as artists into more abstract forms built on their technical brilliance and their works are therefore credible and intellectually grounded.
Other ‘artists’ (like the bloke who won the 2023 Turner Prize yesterday, or the idiot who was lauded for painting with elephant dung) are bulldusters who have limited intellectual depth and whose crap is adulated by left-wing avant-garde Establishment elites who have money and spare time to waste. In contrast, the likes of Picasso could stand on their own two feet without the support of champagne socialists driving the nouveau art agenda.
Guston has the joy of idol smashing.