Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

D ro s-rt c, WE'VE never had an exhibition of old master paintings and drawings brought to Australia f or s a le before. NOW Thomas Agnew and Sons, an old - established and very respectable Lon- don firm, has brought 27 paintings and eight draw- ings to David Jones'. Can we afford them? I often at mder if there's any real wealth in Aus- tralia at all, or whether it all goes back to foreign owners in Great Britain or the United States. In addition, taxes here are double those in t lt e United States, salaries are half and expenses are the same. What I mean by real wealth is someone with $50,000 spare, every year, that they could giVe to the Art Gallery of N e w South Wales for buy- ing works of all. It's tax deductible of course. What I'd like is the earliest. painting in the exhibition, a Madonna and Child with Saints, by SOHO di Pietro. painted in Siena, Italy, about 1450. that is Just before t h e High Renaissance. Its price is $78.000. though for a public col- lection such as the Art Gallery of New South Wales this is reduced by 811.435, which IS 'the. sales tax. (Sales tax on cultural materials is another scandal, another way of keeping Australia provincial.) I'd like it because the people of Netv South Wales have never seen any gocci art, Italian or otherwise, from the 15th or 16th cen- turies, a period when some of the world's greatest art was made. What has been available, for several generations, to the New South Wales pub- lic, has been only 19th century art - chiefly Eng- lish Victorian - and Con- temporary art. A few years ago a hand- ful of VI Century paint- ings began to enter the Art Gallery. And when it reopens next year it will show a much Increased 18th century collection. " oc ct-fo, :ART :vit Daniel Thomas WANTED: $66,565 TO BUY CITY A SANO But the Gothic period and the Italian Renais- sance remain non-existent. If the argument on grounds of adding diversity to an extremely uniform and conformist visual cul- ture is unassailable, what about the other arguments for the picture. Is it genuine? If it is from Agnews you assume it is, but you always col- lect a few extra opinions before you pay up. More important, what is the condition? How much is restored, how much or- iginal surface? SOR restoration There is sonic obvious restoration at the lower left, the rest looks pretty good. But again, you give It a good hard look before you pay: and in any case 15th century paintings in immaculate condition scar- cely exist. The Gothic frame in which this round-arched painting is now placed is not original, but plenty of Sano's paintings do have Gothic, pointer: arch tops. Ls San° di rietro a sig- nificant artist, and is this typical of his works? It appears to. be. highly typi- cal. But he wasn't great individual master like Sassetta, under whom he studied. If a painting by Sassetta turned up today it would cost about $5 mil- lion. He was the most suc- cessful artist in Siena in his own time, had a large and productive w o r k - shop, and is thus highly typical of a period rather titan a great individual. He was a conservative in a city whose whole cul- ture was conservative, where Gothic and Byzan- tine elegance and grace survived while Florence was producing the tough Renaissance sobriety of Masacclo. Even so, is it beautiful? Indeed yes. It has the most poig- nant, tiptoe venture into solid modelling of the fig- ure, and Into individual characterisation of facial features, which is w h a t Renaissance painting was largely about. Yet it keeps the swinging linear rhythms of the flat-pat- tern symbolic cut-outs that earlier art often resembled. And it keeps pretty color and decorated surfaces - diaper pattern in the gold ground, roses in the angels' hair, And price? The least important question. A fair price is :imply what the market will bear. Agreed, it's not as good as Sassetta, but if a good Sassetta turned up it might cast half a million dollars, or a minim' But surely it's bet- ter thal four $20,000 Dobelia?