My art week

I have just finished Art of the Extreme 1905-1915 by Philip Hook the ex-Director of Impressionism and Modern Art at Sothebys.

His background is sales. He writes well.

He is on safer ground discussing the great collectors Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov in Russia and the emerging super rich ones in America – Henry Clay Frick notably, and the major dealers like Paul Durand-Ruel (the Impressionists), Ambroise Vollard (the post-Impressionists) and Henry Kahnweiler (Picasso) than the various “isms” – cubism, fauvism, futurism, pointillism, vorticism and expressionism.

On these subjects his theories often lost me. I have reached the stage when I prefer to see a picture and reach my own conclusions.

After a week ‘s absence, as our teacher was away, our courses resumed with a study of Anselm Kieffer on Tuesday and Victorian art yesterday.

One of the characteristics of German artists like Kieffer is their nationalism.

Born in 1945 and a pupil of Joseph Beuys, you might think he might be ashamed by German nationalism but – on the contrary – like Beuys, his work is motivated by strong feelings against the invasion and pervasion of American culture in post-War West Germany.

In the past Otto Dix was a great nationalist, though classified as a degenerate by the Nazis, and leading lights of die Blaue Reiter, Franz Marc and August Macke died fighting for their country in World War One.

I am no expert on – and don’t much like – Victorian art, but I was impressed (in the pictures we saw) by the sense of social realism in artists like Ford Madox Brown and William Frith Powell.

After the course I had a light lunch in a local funky arts cafe with our tutor J.

She is a remarkable woman, coming to study Art at university in her mid-40s after raising her family, and now an enthusiastic and well-informed teacher.

She is immensely popular with her pupils who, like me, sign up every year for her classes.