Look
here, Hockers! not bothering to lower his voice, That
pink you've daubed on the tree trunk there will never do! The
artist stares at his painting as if seeing it for the first time.
Gallery workers down tools and stare at him. He pushes his glasses up
and squints in the glare of the strip light, at this point more
puzzled than put out. Then the agent looks up from consulting his
mobile, It'll have to come down! And the show can't open until
it's fixed! Hockey rubs his eyes and gives a shrug of
incredulity. But the blighter is not through with him, pointing at
the screen of his mobile, Actually, there's something more
serious. We looked up your latest pallet on the Hewlett-Packard
scale. Hockney's eyes flick between the screen on the phone and
his paintings on the wall. By this time, the gallery workers are
drifting out for a fag. The torment proceeds, This programme says
eleven pinks, four purples and all your bloody violets were nicked
from internet porn sites! You're cheating the public! Hockney
shakes his head, struck dumb with disbelief. It goes on, What's
more, to be brutally honest, not only is your pallet off colour... By
now the cocky little amanuensis has pocketed his mobile and is
strutting down the gallery, cracking the palm of his hand with a
riding crop, ...We're also concerned about the draughtsmanship
here! And here! He flicks at the paintings with his crop And
here! Hockney, his body by now trembling, fumbles to light a
cigarette,
How
long have I got to sort it out?.
The
agent sniffs and looks him up and down
Pull
yourself together man!
Hockney
winces and lets out a sudden yelp. He knows the game is up. The
critic is storming out, his arms flailing,
For
God's sake, take the lot down! The whole show's postponed for another
six months.
The
artist falls to his knees, breaks into uncontrollable sobs.
I
exaggerate, of course. The real David, a true professional, takes
this kind of comment first on the one cheek. Then on the other. Then
on all four. Ouch! One hint of criticism, a single derogatory remark
or even a careless raspberry from a gallery worker and he will cancel
a show himself. He hollers at his droogs,
Out!
Out! Out! Bung it all in the pantechnicon! Back to the studios! He
will think nothing of repainting a whole years' work to satisfy the
arbiters of taste that are his secret controllers. The pillory of
criticism, he considers the comfy chair of the true artist. Indeed,
to be the critic's whipping boy has always been his one true
ambition. This is why his art will go down the great tunnels of
history. This is what he learned from the old masters he studied as a
student. This is why the public so love his art. He is a very good
boy and always does just what he is told.
Hockney
may be one of the biggest examples of what the public demands from
their artists, via the hordes of agents, producers, promoters,
publicist, press officers, coaches and the like that swarm between
them and the audience - like the wall of bouncers you get at a
stadium rock concert. But for precedents we don't have to go very far
back in time. Ludwig Van, no less, was a regular defendant at the
court of taste. Whenever one of his symphonies was under rehearsal,
he would invariably be dragged, by his one good ear, out of the
auditorium, a whole team of Viennese music gurus hauling him up
before the style council. “Jawohl, Mein Beak!” the composer of
Leonoras One, Two and Three would shout - “Zat stray acciacaccura,
I vill liqvidate it vit mein bare hands!” - and straight away would
gather up all copies of the flawed work and take them out to his
brazier. Ludwig always kept a good brazier going in the garden of the
Unter Den Linten block in Vienna. Many the candlelit night he would
spend, chewing prunes and completely re-writing a score just to
satisfy the whims of Pretorian dudes.
Neither
was Bach a stranger to the tortures meted out to those failing to
well-temper their claviers. On one occasion, when the Bishop of
Brandenburg caught him copying out a score he'd pinched from
Vivaldi's waste basket, he was told, in no uncertain terms, to “put
it back where he bloody-well found it!” Which meant transposing by
hand every single note of the Four Seasons, semitone by semitone!
Surely
sculpture is inured to the drive of market forces? No fear!
Michaelangelo often had his wrist slapped, usually while engaged in
the very act of chiselling. A small example. The main reason for the
unprepossessing size, not to mention flaccidity, of the Boy David's
willy - is that the Florentine authorities took Goliath's part in the
matter. Yep, no one in Renaissance Italy was fooled by that
pretty-boy with the sling; and, as the saying goes, no shiksa, no
schlong! So Mikey, as his close friends knew him, took cloth cap in
hand and went to the Papal Legate himself, Mr Borgia, offering to
trim the wick according to the boy's wickedness, which he did. Ouch!
Speaking
of hammer horrors, everyone knows the story of a two-bit Broadway
hoofer telling Rudolf Nureyev that large sets of tackle were a cause
of eccentric pirouettes. He only went and cashed-in his jewels, poor
lamb!
We
could go on...
Is
it any wonder, then, that the celebrated writer of The Jimmy Porter
Raps, sorry The Happy Rotter Tales, sorry (shuffle of papers)
whatshisname? R.J. Reynolds? Sorry.. I'll read that again, T.S.
Eliot, now writing books for grow-nups, has been forced to switch
from Colin's Harp to Little Brown Jug?
Schlieman
Horde Sighted!
Troy Story Eliot
- The Face That Sank A Thousand Ships
Now
with Little Brown Jug
News
just in...
Eliot
Island controversy - Jamaica for the Parrots & Carrots!
From
our Large Islands correspondent, “T.S. Eliot buys the Island of
Jamaica intending to turn it into a Parrot Sanctuary and breeding
ground for Carrots. Aborigine objectors take her to the Court of
Human Rights.”
Older
Works for Children: Pottie the Parrot lives amongst the Humans. They
imitate each other and make things up as they go along. Colin's
Harp 11 vols. Hardback: £17.95; Engraved Copper Sheet: £8,500;
Handwritten on Vellum with Diamond Encrusted Golf Leaf cover: 280,000
guineas each.
Hottie The Carrot
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