Art and soul

When you take a trip to the big city, you really have to do a few things you can't at home, don't you? So the other week on a visit to London my friends and I had (a very-nice-indeed) lunch accompanied by a sparkling flying horse - not just any old sparkling flying horse, either, this one has a 30ft wingspan.  

The striking sculpture - a crystal-encrusted Pegasus - is a Damien Hirst, and we were in the Brasserie of Light inside Selfridges.  Must admit - I'm not too keen on Selfridges itself, all that materialism/ consumerism, all those impeccable looking people contemplating which £700 pair of shoes to buy - it doesn't do anything for me and I'd far rather be sitting on the edge of a muddy pond looking at frogspawn (genuinely).   But, that said, having lunch in the Brasserie of Light was a lovely experience.  Gorgeous food, super service, and a trippy crystal horse soaring over our heads - they just don't have that down my local.

From there we headed away from the dust and crowds of Oxford Street and ducked down Duke Street, past some Georgian villas with hanging baskets and traditional lamp posts and across Manchester Square to see Grayson Perry's 'Delusions of Grandeur' show at the Wallace Collection. The exhibition really harmonises with its surroundings at the elegant Hertford House and the fanciful, decorative curviness of the Rococo furniture and fine art in many of its other rooms; it was a visual banquet.  And just to mix it all up a bit,  another Grayson alter ego is introduced in the form of an Eastender called Shirley Smith, who herself has another persona, the Hon. Millicent Wallace (do keep up!)  There were also some darker, bleaker references to mental illness and the inclusion of some work by (real) outsider artist Madge Gill intertwined with this.  Maybe that all sounds a bit complicated but, to be honest, I didn't mind - just soaked up the feel and the fantasy alongside the art, went with the flow and loved it.

Here she is - Grayson Perry's alter ego Shirley Smith's alter ego Millicent Wallace:

'The Honourable Millicent Wallace'

Tapestries, carpet, ceramics, paintings, sculptures, wood-cuts, drawings, a dress and even a bedspread made the whole exhibition very multi-layered, colourful, sensual and, sort of, hallucinatory.  I just kept thinking too how much I'd love to witness his creative processes - especially on some of the really big works.  I adored this gorgeously illustrated chest of drawers:

'The Great Beauty'

Detail from 'The Great Beauty'

There was one more thing I really needed to see whilst we were there at the Wallace Collection, though, an unexpected bonus upstairs.  A man whose face and moniker are so familiar and famous that I don't think I've ever really given him too much thought.  And yet...

'The Laughing Cavalier' Frans Hals

It's hard to describe that certain feeling you get when you see the original of such a well-known painting after having only seen it in print, isn't it?... ok, I can't!... apart from saying that the Laughing Cavalier (a name only later given to him by the Victorian press) looked so fresh and flirtatious and knowing and corporeal that I could almost swear I saw his upturned moustache twitch just a little and, as for that look in his eyes -  I think my cheeks may have reddened slightly.  

Doesn't art just make you feel good?