We celebrated the first day of the Jubilee not in the Mall but at a concert at the Wigmore Hall by Jess Gillam, the brilliant young saxophonist, and her ensemble. Two of the pieces were by composers in the audience and the work by CPE Bach (part of the Flute Concerto in A Minor) had been adapted magnificently and crazily by Simon Parkin who was also there, so it felt like attending an experimental musical gathering, very unlike the normal formality of an evening at the Wigmore Hall. A treat.

Richard Morphet, the former Keeper of the Modern Collection at the Tate, gave an absolutely brilliant speech at the launch of Frances Spalding’s new book, The Real and the Romantic, about the arts between the two world wars: stressing the importance of being generous and comprehensive about how the arts should be studied, rather than narrow and sectarian; an approach which has clearly been followed by Spalding who is apparently as generous in writing about the etchings of F.L. Griggs as she is about the work of Ben Nicholson. I’m looking forward to reading the book and learning more about the complexities of the period, including the role of the Royal Academy.

A very intriguing editorial in this month’s Burlington Magazine as to whether or not there is such a thing as an Elizabeth II Style: that is, whether or not there might in retrospect be more visual coherence in the artistic work produced during her reign than was acknowledged at the time, as in the reign of William and Mary or Queen Anne; hard to see given that the reign has been so long and has encompassed so many different changes of style, but it would be a way of acknowledging a wider range of artistic production than just the avant garde, including, as the editorial suggests, the new romanticism of the early 1980s.

https://www.burlington.org.uk/archive/editorial/the-elizabeth-ii-style

I see that Anselm Kiefer’s astonishing and magical studio complex is going to open to the public. It is not easy to get to, being in the hills north-west of Avignon, but if you ever get the chance of visiting, I strongly recommend it: it’s so ambitious, on such a vast scale, an unreal combination of art, landscape and decay, like the Stations of the Cross. I have never been to Marfa, but know of nowhere else so atmospheric:-

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/05/30/anselm-kiefers-40-hectare-human-ant-hill-in-southern-france

Ditchling itself manages to retain a surprising amount of its pre-war character, which attracted Eric Gill and so many other artists to it.

The church, said to be over-restored, but this is not evident from a distance :-

Opposite the museum, on the other side of the Green is a house, Cotterlings, faced with red and black mathematical tiles:-

Next door is Wings Place, Tudor perfect:-

The High Street has more Tudor houses, including Bank House (1573):-

We particularly liked the small private cemetery for the Browne family attached to the Old Meeting House:-

We stopped off at the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft which was beautifully enlarged and enhanced by Adam Richards Architects in 2014 – a model of a small local museum, currently showing an excellent exhibition of the murals which Frank Brangwyn, a resident of the village, did for Skinners Hall, available for exhibition while the hall itself is restored. In particular, there’s a long and informative film about Brangwyn’s life which helps explain why he was so successful in his lifetime – so productive and versatile – whereas now he is maybe not so well regarded for just the same reasons:-

I was trying to figure out for a piece I am writing how resilient the existing culture of Hackney Wick is to the amount and speed of new building and urban change. The answer seems to be, so far so good, in spite of losses, but I could well be wrong:-

At a time when we are being told by Tory MPs that everyone, including NHS workers, broke the rules in the same way that the Prime Minister so obviously did, a pathetically intellectually (and legally) feeble way of trying to exculpate him – hey, gov, other people have committed the same offence so what does it matter if I have ? – I was rather touched to read the attached inscription in a pavement in Hackney Wick which is a reminder that, far from being a period of rule-breaking, the early period of lockdown was a period of exceptional community solidarity and mutual support, which is partly why, I suspect, the anger against the way 10, Downing Street behaved will endure, whatever Jacob Rees-Mogg says:-