From the Archives
Robert O’Byrne on the charms of ‘interesting mortars’
Eighty years ago, Britain was effectively in lockdown as war with Germany imposed severe restrictions on the populace. Under these circumstances, the challenge for publications such as Apollo was how to find sufficient material to fill each month’s pages. What might be politely described as a diverse range of articles tended to appear, as exemplified by the contents of the May 1941 issue. This included three pages devoted to ‘Interesting Mortars’; perhaps it was thought their pestle equivalents deserved separate attention. ‘Those who have been attracted at some time or the other by the charm of an old mortar,’ begins the text, ‘may welcome a few notes respecting these age-old utensils.’ It would be fascinating to learn how many of Apollo’s readers had experienced such an attraction, and indeed whether they sought help for the condition.
On the other hand, some contributors recognised the opportunities offered at the time, not least a chance to broach topics otherwise unlikely to receive space in the magazine. One such instance in this issue was A. C. Sewter’s ‘The Reputation of English Art’. Although little recalled now, Albert Sewter (1912–83) had a distinguished career: still not yet 30, he had already served as editor of the Burlington Magazine before being appointed assistant director of the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham. He would also later become senior lecturer in art history at Manchester University.
Sewter’s principal interest was British painting of the 18th and early 19th centuries, which, having enjoyed popularity in earlier decades, especially among newly rich American collectors, had now fallen out of favour.
Clearly, this was a matter of regret to him, as he noted with dismay the widespread lack of interest in or knowledge of the national school. While a handful of names, such as Reynolds, Turner and Lawrence, might be familiar to the general public, too many others, Sewter thought, remained unappreciated. How many secondary-school children, he wondered, knew ‘in which century Francis Cotes lived and worked, who was Sir John Vanbrugh, or what kind of picture John Crome painted?’
One reason for this lack of awareness, he believed, was insufficient press coverage: ‘Our newspapers and magazines, it is true, still carry little notices of art exhibitions, yet what a tiny amount of space these occupy in comparison with the pages devoted by nearly every weekly or monthly to literature and book reviews!’ Likewise there were too few good books available, particularly monographs on individual painters. ‘The student of English painting,’ despaired Sewter, ‘looks in vain for well-informed books on even major artists such as Richard Wilson or William Etty, while for secondary figures one can rarely hope for anything more comprehensive than a magazine article or a memoir now hopelessly out of date.’
It might be expected that Sewter’s explanation for this state of affairs lay in the country’s poor educational standards, or even philistine indifference. However, he aimed his wrath at a different, rather unexpected target: the private owner. The problem, he was convinced, arose from the fact that ‘so many valuable and essential documents of our national artistic history remain in private possession, where they are beyond the reach of the public, often beyond that even of the art historian and research worker, who, even if he can obtain permission to enter a private house in order to inspect a work of art, is put to the trouble and expense of touring the whole country in search for his subject.’ When he reached his prey, according to Sewter, the art hunter would frequently find it ‘in unsatisfactory condition, hung where he cannot properly examine it, and is subjected to an unrelenting and suspicious supervision by owner or butler, which defeats every effort at concentrated attention.’
The obvious surmise is that Sewter was writing from bitter personal experience. Nevertheless, the solution he proposed seems radical. ‘It is high time,’ he stated, ‘that public ownership of all art objects of national importance were declared, or at least that private control of them were restricted, and effective measures taken to ensure that all national artistic treasures be registered, indexed, and made available to students and public under satisfactory conditions.’
Alas, no information is available about how Sewter’s manifesto was received, but a suspicion arises that at least some Apollo readers may, after digesting its contents, have turned with relief to the contemplation of interesting mortars. In any case, his ideas do not necessarily stand up to close scrutiny. Today, many more works of art are accessible to scholars and the general public – though it still seems unlikely that most schoolchildren know in which century Francis Cotes lived and worked, or what kind of picture John Crome painted.