Julian Bell

‘Technically I didn’t throw the baby out with the bath water as it wasn’t in the bath at the time’ (2020) by Ray Ward

The verb​ ‘to draw’ refers to an act of pulling. Apply it to mark making, and two such acts come into view. A hand pulls a marker across a surface. Human intention, on some level or other, is involved. But the vessels of that intention...

‘Self-Portrait with Portrait of Émile Bernard (Les Misérables)’ (1888)

Broad shoulders​ retreating down a gangplank: my mind’s eye rests there, after reading two new books about Paul Gauguin. The gait is springy: this passenger pushes away from the others; he strides off. The ground on which he alights is Peruvian, then French, Danish, Panamanian,...

Whatever​ the Laughing Cavalier is so pleased about, I’ve no wish to know. That bumptious bar-room menace from the Wallace Collection has me taking to my heels. I gravitate instead towards a black-hatted roué from the Fitzwilliam, more at ease with his slouch and sad wry smile. Elsewhere in the National Gallery’s Frans Hals exhibition (until 21 January), a debonair...

In London​, I had taken A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal for a dependable rest point on strolls around the National Gallery. In Amsterdam, relocated to join 27 other Vermeers in the Rijksmuseum exhibition, its strangeness re-emerged. This canvas, executed towards the end of Vermeer’s relatively brief career (some four years, perhaps, before he died aged 43 in 1675), commits to a...

‘Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from the Bibémus Quarry’ (c.1895-99).

The pigments​ in paintings of Cezanne’s middle age cluster like gangs in a schoolyard. Cobalt, ultramarine and Prussian blue cleave to a bay or bolt of fabric. Emerald and viridian occupy pears, jars and foliage. The biggest grouping, the ochres and terracottas, huddle around roofs or rocks or...