To ‘venerate’ Hockney is a corruption of English
They’re selling a painting by David Hockney at Christie’s in New York for £61m, a record for a living artist. Pool with Two Figures is the kind of work that defines Hockney, who moved to Los Angeles in the Sixties, and entered immediately and enthusiastically into the homosexual life of a city that embraced him no less eagerly.
Hockney is not only an accomplished artist, he is also a star – the brightest star in the firmament of modern art, where stardom frequently trumps talent. A figure of £61m is essentially a victory lap. After more than six decades of painting, often very well, Hockney, 81, is the monarch of all he surveys.
Alex Rotter, chief wallah at Christie’s when it comes to post-war art, certainly thinks so. With this painting, he says, Hockney “cemented his placement within the realm of history’s most venerated artists”. Steady, the Buffs! We have become used to the corruption of language – “legendary” and “iconic” mean almost nothing now – but “venerated” still comes as a shock. So does “placement”, come to that.
Does Herr Rotter really believe that a painting, however attractive, of two men, one standing, the other swimming, elevates Hockney to the company of Giotto, Raphael, Titian, Dürer and Rembrandt, to list only the most obvious figures? We know the answer. What he really means is: “We’re about to make a lot of lolly, and it’s a good idea to coat the sale with a patina of class.”
Pool with Two Figures is a snapshot of a certain place at a certain time, and has become a familiar image. Hockney is a serious painter, and an admirable man. But the Immortals is a club with few members, and not even £61m will bribe the doorman. Money reflects vanity; history respects genius.
In Jake’s Thing, Kingsley Amis provided one of the supreme comic set pieces in modern fiction. Between entering and leaving a newsagents, to buy some pornographic magazines, Jake hears the shop owner say “cheers” five times, as a nervous response conditioned by custom rather than actual language.
Last week, between being seated at a table and being served my lunch, I received no fewer than six “no worries” from the waiter. He was a thoroughly pleasant young man but did it not occur to him that other words and phrases are available and, in the ears of most diners, preferable?
Harold Pinter had a good response to “no worries”. “I wasn’t expecting any,” he told a waitress at a Dublin hotel. To the man who called him “mate” he replied: “I’m sorry, were we at school together?” That’s the way to do it!
Pinter, who died 10 years ago, is being celebrated at the West End theatre that bears his name with a season of his shorter plays. With actors like David Suchet helping to light the lights, this festival is bound to be one of autumn’s big events.
He could be a cussed man, Pinter. He could also be surprisingly gauche, particularly if there were cricketers around. His childhood hero was Leonard Hutton, the great Yorkshire batsman, who was later knighted. But when, as a celebrated dramatist, he saw Hutton at the Oval, “I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him”.
One day in June 2000 Pinter joined a group of us at Sally Clarke’s restaurant in Notting Hill Gate. It was a jolly gathering, which included Michael Parkinson, Tim Rice, Stephen Fry, Bob Willis and Bob Tear, the opera singer.
Yet when he addressed the boys at Eton that night Pinter told them: “You’ll never guess who I met today … [the cricketer] Mark Nicholas!”
A great day it was, even if Harold did forget his wallet. Words fall out of fashion, as well as into it. One of the delights of Cressida Connolly’s After the Party, the summer “sleeper” novel, is being reacquainted with “bish”, as in “a bit of a bish” – a mistake. At prep school one heard it several times a day. Now, like “ricket”, which has a similar meaning, it’s become as rare as the dodo.
Connolly, like Pinter, albeit in a very different way, has an ear for how people really speak. It’s the gift of a proper writer, as opposed to a skilful note-taker. A gift to be cherished. Venerated, one might say.
Much has been made of the unnamed Australian cricketer who dubbed Moeen Ali “Osama” when he came out to bat. It’s not a clever remark, and not funny, but is it as offensive as some suggest? Moeen, who asked the England management not to pursue it, appears to recognise that on the field, boys will be boys.
In The Browning Version the pupils called Crocker-harris, their dry Latin master, “the Hitler of the lower fifth”. Bill Pertwee’s ARP warden in Dad’s Army regularly baited Arthur Lowe’s Captain Mainwaring with “Napoleon”. How on earth did they manage in Walmington-on-sea without counselling?
Charles Moore is away
‘The Immortals is a club with few members, and not even £61m will bribe the doorman’