Not surprisingly, I have been thinking of the big John Wonnacott painting of the Royal Family, done for the Queen Mother’s 100th. birthday in 2000, commissioned as a way of showing the different generations of the Royal Family – a sense of their interaction, their family relationships and of the succession, which didn’t seem such an issue then.

In retrospect, I wonder if it should have been done in Clarence House, not Buckingham Palace, but it was a self-conscious updating of John Lavery’s The Royal Family at Buckingham Palace (1913). I notice that pictures acquire a different aura of significance long after the event:-

https://www.apollo-magazine.com/the-many-faces-of-the-queen/?s=09

Readers may legitimately wonder what the mood was like yesterday in the grounds of Dumfries House. The answer is that I remember hearing the noise of a helicopter in the distance, maybe at about 10 o’clock. It was. When we learned that it was the Prince of Wales summoned to Balmoral, I think we all knew instinctively what that was likely to mean; but it was a long wait through the course of the day, in which I was the least well informed. Everyone else seemed to have vastly much better access to the rumour mill. At 5 o’clock, I got a call in the Entrance Hall (use of phones is forbidden) to ask if the news was true. I asked as I left the house half an hour later, but it was unconfirmed. So, I only learned when I switched on the tv – very unusual for me – at 6.25 in the hotel bedroom. The end of an era. And the beginning of a new one.

As readers of my blog will know, I got very interested earlier in the summer in the development of Hackney Wick which is changing very fast, but in a way which I think has been pretty successful, although the artists who have had to move out because of changing property prices will not agree (I met one last week).

I also started exploring the former Olympic Village. At the time, I wasn’t aware that both were a result of large-scale planning by the London Olympic Development Corporation under the chairmanship of, first, Ken Livingstone, then Boris Johnson and are a perfect exemplification of recent policies towards urban planning and that, over the summer, a lot of other people were going to write about the success or otherwise of the London Olympic Legacy Development Corporation, its successor body, including Oliver Wainwright in the Guardian very negatively and Rowan Moore in the Observer more positively.

My analysis, based on bicycling more than reading, apart from Grindrod’s admirable recent Iconicon, has just gone live:-

https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/aug-sept-2022/old-and-new/

I have just been sent the attached.

I’ve been to Dumfries House before, but only as part of an official visit, never able to wander freely as I have this morning. It’s impressive how much has been done since I last came, or maybe I just didn’t see it.

The Rothesay Garden, an Anglo-Chinoiserie ornamental garden with an impressive carpentry bridge, as if from an eighteenth-century pattern book, but done with freedom:-

A column ornamented with antlers, again a free interpretation of pattern-book design:-

The dovecote, or doocot as it’s called, which long antedates the house – 1671 according to a date carved into a door:-

The Chinese bridge, based on a design by Robert Weir Schultz who worked so closely with the then Marquis of Bute:-

And a little pagoda at the centre of the maze:-

It feels very convincingly eighteenth century in its range of cultural references and sense of seeing the world in a pocket handkerchief.

My friend, Richard Bram, a street photographer, took a characteristically lively photograph of John Wonnacott alongside his powerful Self-Portrait which I reproduce as a memento of a marathon, three-day book launch:-

Because the light is good this morning, John’s seascapes look good – scenes of the harbour-side at Leigh-on-Sea where he has been painting for sixty five years, so knows it all intimately.

These are details:-

I have been living with John Wonnacott and his pictures for the last couple of days, as a way of celebrating the publication of my book (https://www.lundhumphries.com/products/john-wonnacott).

I have found it an interesting experience, partly because it is such a pleasure to live with pictures and get to know them better, the test of a good picture being how far and in what way it survives prolonged scrutiny – and I can’t help but notice how some people spend a long time in the room figuring out the quality and character of the paint surface, particularly with his largest and most ambitious recent work, Self Portrait with Grünewald and Two Geese, which has layers of complexity in terms of his depiction of the geese, his use of mirrors, and the relationship of sitter to his surroundings.

This is a not very good reproduction:-

This a close-up of his head:-

I have given up bread and cheese to the great benefit of my waistline – I have lost a stone in four months – but to the infinite deprivation of one of the great pleasures of life. So, a trip to Neil’s Yard in Borough Market this morning was a form of torture: the citadel of lovers of the best and rarest of English cheese, as I am. Now I can only enjoy it vicariously and in tiny slivers which I was offered illicitly over the counter like the rarest contraband:-

Today is publication day for my book on John Wonnacott. For anyone who is interested in acquiring it, Lund Humphries are offering a discount this month.

Special Offer: 20% off + free UK postage
Visit http://www.lundhumphries.com and use offer code WONNACOTT20 at the checkout to apply
the discount. Valid until 30 September 2022