THE CHINA MAIL,
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1959.
BY THE MAN WHO MADE THE £500,000 'DISCOVERY OF THE `CENTURY,
How it feels to find an artistic treasure hoard
SOME
NOME two years ago I saw five black and crumpled canvases in a shed in Dublin. Today they are among the most magical Venetian pictures In
the world.
I feel as if I had helped to hatch a bird of unparalleled beauty out of
a most unpromising egg.
When I first saw the pictures tliy were black with layer upon layer of devoloured coach varsh.
Here and there they were pasted over with paper, to pre- vent the paint falling off the Canvas Scarvely
ang
colour
By- DAVID
after Cion
years was visible, and the brushwork painted 30 was almost impenetrably ob- Antonio's death.
When I showerl
tum photo Scared
the graph of
newly found series, he had no hesitation in identifying them Ds by the
ne hand, A few earlier, he might have said Gian Antonio,
Some doubt
They bore no defuite attribu- tion, Certainly they
were by some eighteenth-century Vene- tion painter. Certainly they re- sembled
the few figure com position:: attributed to Guard which I had - in Italian clamebes Tut at that time These was still some doubt as 10 whether Francesco Guardi bin Belf had ever painted figure
compositions,
Muraro's opinion came up a great reller. I had advised a London epilector. Geofrey Merton, to try the pletures, and the uncertainty regarding their authorship, combined with the difficulty of eleasing them had often made me wonder whether
had advised him wisely For more than a year I was
Recent criticism had in-tertain whether that helped has to buy tive masterpieces, or
pictures the
CARRITT
Finally, a Fow weeks ago, all five pictures could appreciated in their original splendour.
[M1
bo
"You can como out, Grandma. Wo nearly made it-London to Birmingham and back in two hours."
Apart from their beauty, the of enor- Merton pictures are mous artistic importance for two reasons.
Guardi
First, they establisli as a painter of figure-composi- tions comparable to his more- G. D. famous brother-in-law, Tiepolo,
Secondly, they are the only series of first-class 18th-century Venetian paintings still in pri. vate hands.
cxists in
from
Nothing like them Great Britain, apari
are fiepolo in Edinburgh, and that had been severely mutilated
So reckless
were
clined to confine Fran- had merely landed him with in the 19th century. cosco's activities to landscape an OKPETES VA headache and bitter Thaps 1 attribute eventually, painting, and to almost everything else to his appointment.
17:10 mediocro elder brother. Gian
being gradually cleaned, detal It is fairly true to say that Antonio.
the generation goh discoveries which it needs.
The age which produced the rescued the Impressionists
master of illusionism, supreme Vermeer, from total obscurity,
Shee the Dubin pictures came to light, an Italian art hisoria, Michelangelo Muraro, har diwovered make
Guardi altarpiece which was certainly
TALKING
POINTS
Without adventure, civi- lisation is in full decay.
--A. N. WHITEHEAD.
*
after de'ail ixauty
miraculous uf
emerged from overy would the Surrounding to a silver behet embellished with pearls and ostrich feathers, a Venelion lupoon bathed in early morning light: a spray of flowers, holly- hocks or convolvulus; a sleeve of iridescent silk.
The guts themselves, which ho aripinally wesed hillow
in theatrical, became and crearingly three dimensional. Bands grew solid and pliable, feet stood four-square on the ground.
Indefinite
Inertsingly apparent, too, ww the artist's place in flu great Venetian tradation. A wild macie his hor-eman suddenly #ppearance, like a figure out of Two by Tintoretto. bathing nymphs took on pearly sheen
Veronese's nudes.
Never economise on sketch luxuries.
ANGELA THIRKELL.
*
of
A landscape us broadly paint
ed as
late tian took shape
Woe unto me when all where once there had been only
men praise me.
-DERNARD SHAW.
CRATER OF
BURIED HATTHE
ANGE
CO-EXISTENCE SEA
an indefinite blur of green and yellow,
SEA OF
PLACE
"Russian women have always been used to manual labour
London Express Berrica.
71
DANGER: WOMEN AT WORK
NIN
JINE storeys high at the top of one of Moscow's new blocks of flats, two cranes silhouetted
against the greenish night sky swung slowly into action.
Suddenly, as electric lights snapped on, one could see builders striding in and out of the shadows, high up, carrying pails of mortar, bricks, trowels. It was nine o'clock by my watch.
thought the men wuro worldng fate. Then, one Agure A typical one reads, "We
a paul in cach hand varrying
love the Soviet women, mothers walked with a brisk, swinging
an toilers." That just about step into a beam of light, And
sums up the position. But 1 I could sENA that the propis
would put it the other way, El Greco, with his wilful dis-working perimsly above were
ay roundtoilers and mother." electric vitality.
not workmen nt understood women.
all, int
The women's place is not in Cezanne,
the bume. fis in the flelds, the factories, The right of these "pider- mn the roady
engineers and women" hard at work, and at-
well us routine tracting to more attention than mechanles as
counter workers in the hospitals, where a woman behind the would in this country, typified eight out of 10 doctors are for me the position that women
whose
tortions And was first properly by the champion of
Tour, Georges de Ja strange simplifications of form o fascinate us today, was un- the Cublets. of before heard Bosch only became a hero with the advent of the Surrealists.
So it is altogether atting that these Guardis should come
that light at the very moment the mos! advanced modern painters make spontancity and improvisation their supreme artistic virtues.
to
i
cven
I have never before seen Old Masters so swiftly, recklessly painted.
They could almost be called action paintings but action paintings plus art.
-(London Express Servic#).
"Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear.
Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene #}
hold in the Soviet Union.
are
For in Russia, women equal. In some respects, they are more equal than men. They
13
skilled
women.
By YVONNE THOMAS
The only film I saw in Russia
centred round a women Com- munist official sent to supervise
&
For the children, Institutional care takes over where there is no time for home life.
cognise their mothers when they come to get them in the evenings."
Later I spoke to one young mother. Mrs Nadia Soboliva, in the factory where aho worked. She had been working there
sho had the years, and
two who went daughter god
She to the creche every day.
a collective fishing village. She There are numerous creches was quiet, rather hesitant, and was
quick, practical, with where pre-school age children told me without prompting: "I am very satisßed with my life." no nonsense'
two can be left all day way that sent from the men and, the women-In and collected in the evening the fishery hurrying to obey. after work.
The film, spiced with a mild propaganda, seemed to be giv Ing a picture of the ideal Soviet woman--the wife, the mother and the teller.
Women play such wide tole in Russia that one could ainiost see the country as A whole through their work,
"NICE"
I saw come of these children playing in the sun in a purtc. They looked healing and happy, and were looked after by white- uniformed NUTSCH, who were alert and kindly. One of them told us cheerfully: "Some of the children
do not even TC-
But oven in Russia I found that in some
respects women could neither have the cake nor cat
They could do a man's work, but I was told by our interpreter when I st a cigarette, “alee" WOSTICTI did not smoke in Nusta, They had during the war when life was hard, but not many women (apart from the doctors) kept up the habit,
#Nasser Puts
women shipping
driving trams,
do the work of inen, menuat as barbers' shops, and using the well us intellectual, and they curling tongs in hairdressing get paid the same as mir lor salons. doing it,
CHEERFUL
In Leningrad, where the noc. them sun goes down only for a brief hour or two on a summer' night, I walked through the city in the morning streets at four
saw women employed as and squawked loudly for equality, nightwatches sitting sleepily on
As
unt
who
hus always
must admit that I did not ke seeing it in action.
their
their chairs in the doorways, other women cheerfully start- I did not like seeing women ing off in the lorries for
work, and an army of wielding pick axes under the day's hot Russian yun. I did not like women cleaners, sweeping the broad streels and spraying seeing them with road drills, and shovelling tar on the roads, them with water. But they Jooked! cheerful enough.
labout.
QUICK
we
Most Russian women are, Several times, on the inter- and always
been, minable have
straight roads, used to hard manual
come across gangs of women dressed in the usual Himp cation dresses and headscarves oozing melted tar from cone-shaped coutainers over the cracks the road surface. We stopped to speak to some, and they chatled
It is not a Communist innova tion. But whereas the women used to work in the fields they now labour in the towns as well, and as their vast coun- try's economy depends ότι them, they are encouraged to work by the Government.
One means of encouraging them is through the propagan-
take da posters which
the
place of advertisements Russian hoardings.
Curb
On Syrians
He takes a gamble on ‘new look’
PRE
Damascus,
》RESIDENT NASSER OF EGYPT is making a desperate bid to prevent Syria drifting away from his United Arab Republic. He faces growing economic difficulties and an upsurge of Communism in his "northern pro- vince," so he has started an all-out austerity and development programme,
His methods are drastic. Routes out of Syria are sealed tight. No cheerfully to us, Once I asked Syrian is allowed to leave to spend his money abroad. Imports have
been slashed. Luxuries have disappeared.
If I could take photographs. "Not now," they said shyly, "our hands are dirty.”
Nothing that can be pro- Women also take on the adduced in the country is bought 00 ministrative and intellectual
from outside. The rallying cry jobs.
is "Produce!" And the country is certainly producing.
PAPER-BACK LAW BOOKS
A
CUT PRICE
Solicitors try experiment
While Syrian girls trudge the streets searching, mostly in vain, for foreign psticks and the upper classes make do with margarine instead of Danish butter, the 1,000 year old bazaars of Damascus are over- flowing with goods Syrian- produced goods.
Other side
once
MEES AND S
ÁLEFTE
SYRIA
•BAMA WOWS
· DAMASCUS
the
Nasser is taking a gamble with his "new look" for Syria. The upper classes, especially the importers, are losing under the austerity programme.
They know that if Nasser's gamble succeeds, Imports be banned for ever, and that will be the end of their five- figure incomes. They will not love him for this.
schemes
BRY
ot/
Unemployment is another danger, Ferm labourers, out of work through the rain shortage. are streaming into the towns.
To offset this, Nasser is being
Once
leading wheat forced to give Syria the develop
he has lơng exporter in the Middle East, ment "PAPER-BACK experiment" may soon trans- In The Street Called Straight, Syria is now importing grain. promised but always postponed.
St Paul where
code, The hot October sun seems to form the bookshelves in solicitors' offices up brocades.
cottons, woollens, forecast another dry winter. and down the country. The experiment? To pro-worsteds,
50. Nusser has dropped, his duce the expensive legal text books that solicitors spili on to the dusty pavements. need for their work, in a cut-price form.
The markets are piled with plans to make Syria the food ready-made clothing from the Producing partner, while Egypt
industrluilmes. And paper backs the pub- The introduction of paper. Aleppo milia, soap, sugar, foot-
He has good reasons to turn shers have found can shop back editions, has resulted in wear from the Home, Hams
leather und
.
goods
millions Projects worth pouzda-dara, irrigation, roeda, and railways—are beginning to get under way.
More scope
wills his attentions to Syria. The to the Commmista. They can
the power of the Communists in tinned Iraq is encouraging the Syrien pack- Hods.
But this will give more acope
trades Inditrate
urtions
development strikes, · sabotage and production.
and Damascus factories, the price In half. Already a signicant increase in sales
had scarves, nylon socks from nearly 20 text books have among solicitors, avho
village co-operatives, to tiben produced in this way. tended
share books or fruit and Jams from the and results are said to justify borrow them from libraries, a continuation of the experi- "There seors to be no ing plante.
They are trying to recruit
Go Nasser has put in hår inost ment.
Геплод why the experiment
Fuel oils Bre TLO longer those who have reasca to oppost trusted alde, Field-Maraishi should not now be extended imported. Syria supplies her Nasser--the feudal rarmers who Abdul Hakim Amer, vice- The coat of obtaining and anyw
article JA
own from her newly opened oil lost land under the land reform, president of the U.A.R.. giving maintaining on up-to-date month's Jenue of the Gazette. refinery, built by Czechoslovakia the politicians who were quickly him the widest possible powers. collection of text books has And It advocates paper
and expertly put to gras when always been bigh and is back editiona of thelogat particularly *acute for the books which are used intre newly-actied PARD The quently and are At present the picture. Law Society's Ginzuita mirvoy only producid
"almost showed that the cheapest ast armour plated bindings,” al monotāsi books would cost great on
at Hon.
But there is another alde, to the Egyptians took over Syria. Amer will control military
The feeling that they are' and political affairs, -li vill ha. Two years with little rain becoming the poor brothers of up to him to see Nassar'* plan have cost Syrle £50,000,000 and the dual republic is causing un- for Syria succeed, and that the
output by 20. rest and distant" dinang the Héds do not rigugan, cut agrianfurgil
people,