R and I made another trip to London today, to see the Zurbarán exhibition at the National Gallery. We both enjoyed it – though probably not as much as the Guardian’s art critic Jonathan Jones, who gave it a five star review. Someone once asked me why I liked opera and I replied that it was the perfect blend of the sublime and the ridiculous – and I feel a little like that about Zurbarán’s art as well.
There’s a colossal triptych altarpiece (the centre panels of a set of twelve paintings that originally hung together), depicting the early life of Christ, which would be a show-stopper in any circumstances. And some of the Crucifixions, especially the last one he painted, are immensely powerful. I also loved the still life room, and it was very interesting to see Zurbarán’s quite stylised still life work hanging with the much more intricate pieces painted by his son. But… there were an awful lot of saints, and at least to my eye some of them seemed like little more than excuses for him to show off his skill in depicting fabrics. The female saints especially were sumptuously decked out, and rather than looking pious or fearful, every one of them had an expression that said she’d take you off at the knees if you got between her and a roll of brocade during the Liberty sale. I must say, I rather liked his women and children (even the Virgin and the Christ child looked like trouble), and they made me think that Zurbarán might have had quite an interesting home life.
After all that art we went for coffee, then ambled down to St James’ Park to look at the birds. On our last visit the Ring-necked Parakeets were obvious only by the constant racket they were making – we rarely saw any, and when we did, they were always flying high – but since then I’ve learned that these birds are very early nesters, sometimes beginning in January, so it’s understandable that they had better things to do in mid-March than hang around at low level, entertaining the tourists. They build their nests in holes, which in this environment will mean either finding a natural cavity in a tree, or taking over an existing nest hole from another bird. Three or four eggs are laid, which are incubated for about three weeks by the female alone. Both parents then feed the chicks, which fledge about six weeks after hatching, and continue to feed and watch over them for several weeks after that.
This photo shows mother and child: on the left is a juvenile, and on the right an adult female (only males have the black and pink neck ring that gives the species its common name). The youngster begged for food from time to time, and received it, but otherwise seemed fully confident and keen to be off about its own concerns, while the mother trailed along behind, looking frazzled. I remembered various heart-stopping incidents from the early lives of my own children, and sent her a silent message of solidarity.
R and I chose to make this trip on our 37th wedding anniversary (I was, of course, a child bride), and at the end of the afternoon this turned out to be absolutely all the excuse we needed for ordering pre-dinner champagne cocktails. Somewhat embarrassingly, we’re such hopeless lightweights these days that one fizzy drink each had us giggling and incoherent, and it’s probably as well that the waiter intervened and helped us out as we were struggling to take a selfie on R’s phone to send to the Offspring. If he hadn’t, one or both of us would probably have wound up going backwards through the window.
R: L2, C9, D12.
