Author: Michael Chappell

At long last, the notion of green has entered into the forefront of everyone’s consciousness. My own first Earth Day experience was in 1970- it seems like yesterday- wherein a group of us, all in high school, collected roadside trash along a stretch of state highway in Fresno County. I felt good about this, as one did about so many things at age 15, but a seasoned eco-warrior of 17 reminded all of us that we needed to look at the trash we collected for recycling- that it took energy and pollutants to accomplish not just its manufacture but also its reuse. The better objective for all of us was to be Spartan in our habits and avoid consumption of anything that stimulated a persistent use of resources- or, worse, might sooner rather than later through wear or obsolescence end up in a landfill.

What brings all this to mind is reading, for about the hundredth time this week, yet another interview with someone in the design trade discussing how committed they are to green design, when, in fact, they offer up to clients what amounts to little more than inexpensive kack. The prime prerequisite for any of this material is the claim it is composed of elements derived from renewable resources. What astonishes me is how something that is of indifferent quality- in both manufacturing and aesthetics- can be considered green when it will require replacement in only a few years time.  My temptation in the last phrase was to write ‘in a few months time’, and, actually, that’s a better assessment, given how information technology has increased the speed, and consequent obsolescence, of trends in all manner of design. All the more reason, then, if one is truly committed to the environment, to acquire furniture pieces of heirloom quality, those antique pieces that are established, and have been for centuries, in the aesthetic canon and avoid those whose near term legacy will be garage sale detritus, whose destiny, sooner rather than later will be to grace the local recycling station.

How goes the old Wall Street aphorism- bulls and bears get rich, but pigs get slaughtered. Sage, perhaps, but financial sagacity is not my strong suit. Nor that of plenty of other people, particularly in the fine art and antiques trade, with this last year or two cluttered with disbursal sales of former dealers. It’s been an interesting experience, Keith and I chatting with those of long tenure in the trade, discussing how items used to be passed from dealer to dealer, with some kind of mark-up each time it traded hands, until it reached an eventual buyer. The new transparency in the marketplace for art and antiques brought about by information technology is, to my way of thinking, not entirely a bad thing. Mind you, price shopping in the art world is pretty tough, as the price differential between a good object and a similar though superior object is measured exponentially.

But, of course, quality and pricing make for good talking points with clients. I hope my colleagues in the trade agree with me, that discussion about the merits of a piece of furniture or artwork ultimately assist the client to make the right decision and the dealer that assists in that process has established a relationship, and not just accomplished a spot sale. We’ve found generally that sales these days are accompanied by lots of discussion, including plenty of specific questions about our stock, about the trade generally, and the nature of connoisseurship. Although times being the way they are, my venal self would like to jump ahead to closing the sale, but the process of bonding through long discussion has had, for me at least, the beneficial effect of keeping me on my mettle. Discussion, research and explanation assist not just the development of connoisseurship in my clients, but significantly improves my own, and ultimately makes me a better dealer.

It’s reported that Partridge’s former premises on Bond Street, the purpose-built building known since inception as the Palace of the Arts, will be, it appears, for quite a bit longer. Mercifully, the building has been leased to Halcyon Gallery, well established in Bond Street and known for contemporary, albeit not cutting edge, fine art.

Mercifully, I say again, as, given the way most commercial streets in the West End have gone, one presumed that Partridge’s old space would be taken over by a fashion retailer. On hard times, too, and suffering with high, high overheads, the economic blip that sent art and antiques dealers reeling has caught up with the lower end of the luxury goods market, whose internet marketable material makes them eager to shed the actual in favor of the virtual storefront. The gods of art and antiques retailing must be recovering economic hegemony, at long last.

With the first round of fairs completed in Florida and New York, the reports are varied. A few dealers did very well, but a significant sidebar in the news that got published, sadly, was a prominent dealer complaining about trading conditions. Although I would never counsel obfuscation,  times being the way they are, all of us in the trade in English antiques, or any other manner of the fine and decorative arts, should make an effort to put a positive spin on things.

And, frankly, that a body did not do well at a fair, by which I mean make a significant at-show sale- well, any assessment of one’s success conducted any sooner than 6 months following the fair’s conclusion is frankly jumping the gun. No question, fairs are expensive to do, and one would prefer to at least recover one’s costs during its run. If one has no public presence other than at a fair wherein resides one’s only selling opportunity, that’s a different matter, but who anymore does that include? Sans a gallery, every reputable dealer of my acquaintance at least maintains an interactive website and the actual, non-virtual, in-person promotion of one’s gear at a fair might very well have a deferred payoff. Now and for the past year or so, we’ve found the cash conversion cycle frustratingly slow, as buyers find it harder and harder to say yes to purchases. But they are doing so. In fairness, though, this is often cold comfort at the point one is writing the check for stand rental at a fair, where participation, even in the best of times, represents a leap of faith.

My last couple of blogs, although nakedly commercial in their attempt to showcase the glories of impressionist pictures we have for sale, have nevertheless sparked some exchange from a few colleagues about the nature of impressionism. Thanks to this discussion, I’ve reread Roger Fry’s series of essays published in 1920 under the title Vision and Design. While I’d love nothing better than to indulge in an exegetical consideration of Fry, the Bloomsbury artist and critic whose 1910 exhibition of impressionist work was the first ever outside France, I’ll rein myself in for the moment.

While impressionism changed artistic expression from one where effect was measured by facsimile and narrative to one of a supra-realism, capturing an aesthetic sense of the image depicted beyond the visual, Fry believed that impressionism made the larger world understand that there is no objective realism. Realism is conditioned by the artist’s own inner vision, and the successful picture will communicate things beyond that depicted in the picture plane. As with the essence of Dieppe in Loiseau’s picture the subject of yesterday’s blog, Guillaumin communicates in ways beyond the visual the nature of a haystack in ‘Paysage de l’Ile de France’. The exemplar of effectiveness is no longer Apelles, whose images of fruit and flowers fooled bees into trying to light upon them, or the post-Renaissance academicism that wedded the accomplishment of Apelles with an edifying historical narrative.

For Fry, the critical reception of impressionism begged questions for other disciplines and concomitantly led to a broader realization that non-Western material culture was certainly as sophisticated in its artistic production as western Europe. A west African Fang mask or Muslim non-figurative embellishment represent traditions and ways of looking at the world that are different from the west, but that’s all they are- different- and that difference is value-neutral. Moreover, once someone can apprehend that material culture varies, and that nothing is better than or worse than, barriers for cross-cultural appreciation and understanding break down. The effect of impressionism, when coupled with Fry’s critical apprehension of it and its cultural implications, cannot be overstated. In her 1940 biography of Fry, Virginia Woolf sums up the effect of the 1910 exhibition by stating ‘On or about December 1910 human character changed.’