You needn’t be a culture vulture, just give it a chance

Until November 15 Sunderland Museum is displaying the Bernardo Bellotto masterpiece The Fortress of Königstein Castle from the North. A few other eyeball pleasers are there too, including a watercolour of Hylton Castle by JMW Turner.

I’m going. They’re free to view, so why not pop in? If the answer to that is "Because I don’t want to”, then we respectfully suggest a more open-minded approach.

I’m no connoisseur, but I enjoy the occasional stroll around an art gallery. I have a fondness for Salvador Dali, even if I haven’t a clue what’s going on.

In 2015 a masterpiece by the Venetian painter Canaletto, A Regatta on the Grand

Canal, was also displayed in Sunderland.

I’m not qualified to comment on exactly why it was great, but it was. The best I

Bernardo Bellotto’s The Fortress of Königstein from the North is a belter. You can see it in Sunderland Free! ©The National Gallery, London can do is say that when you gazed at it, you felt as though you might fall into the canal.

Yet perhaps as amazing as the painting itself was the number of Wearsiders who could easily have taken a shufti – but didn’t bother.

There were probably those who viewed it for baser reasons. At a rough guess (mine), A Regatta on the Grand Canal could fetch 20 million quid at auction. The daubings of Bellotto, another Venetian, aren’t cheap either. For that reason alone you might want a peek.

Wouldn’t you? Trust me

But at least I gave them a chance.

So please, support a Sunderland event. The more visitors it attracts, the better for the city. It won’t cost you a penny (although spending a few bob in the gift shop is welcome).

Should you look at Bellotto, Turner, Clarkson Stanfield (son of Sunderland anti-slavery stalwart James Stanfield) etc. and merely shrug your shoulders, fair enough. There’s no right or wrong.

But give it a go. You have 10 weeks and can’t reasonably moan about what doesn’t happen in Sunderland if you don’t support what does.