The pause in posting over the past few days has been a consequence of a visit, with my wife, to London. Bradford is just too far from the capital to make a day trip worthwhile, so every now and then we make visits of two or three days, usually to visit galleries and theatres.* This latest “raid” has been highly enjoyable, with a legacy I’m sure will last for some time. The primary excuse for the trip was my decision to visit the library of the Estorick Collection, which takes as its purpose and focus Italian modernism. I have agreed to give a talk on Renato Guttuso to the regional Italian Circle , and I wanted to pursue a couple of lines of thought which I could not do from home. That was the “bread” of the trip, however, and there were quite a few “cakes” as well.
I have been reading recently about the mediaeval mystical writer Julian of Norwich. The front cover of the edition I am using is a portrait of a woman by an artist named Robert Campin. I had never encountered him before, but was really struck by the portrait, which I discovered is in the collection of the National Gallery. So we went along to see it. Campin lived between 1378/9 and 1444, in the Netherlands, and was one of the founders of Dutch portraiture. The picture of the woman, which took my fancy, is one of a pair together with a portrait of a man believed to be her husband. They hang next to each other in the gallery, and merit a good long reflection on their relationship. My interest, however, was solely in the woman. Although it is obvious that as a married woman she was certainly not an anchorite, as Julian was, there is a kind of intense spirituality about her which really held my attention. Hers is one of those faces which remain with you, and I am sure that this will not be our only encounter.
It remains to be seen whether the result of this acquaintance will be beneficial at all in relation to my reading of Julian. This now seems to be beside the point, as it was worth going to London just to meet the subject of this portrait. By the way, I’m really not impressed at all by the other stuff I’ve discovered by Campin. I guess that if I could go down to posterity for one picture of this quality, however, I would happily settle for that.
*The cost of living is so much higher in London than here in Yorkshire, that I am sure that we are able to enjoy the nation’s cultural inheritance far more easily than if we lived there.