Danskcolin: Tuesday September 10th 2024 "Can YOU tell a 'late' Renoir from just a 'fairly-late' Renoir?"

Have YOU ever noticed, dear Reader, how the world's really great artists all have "early periods", "middle periods" and "late periods" - and some of the really really great artists even have periods like Renoir's "middle to fairly late period" and nonsense of that sort?

And you can't call yourself an expert art critic unless you can distinguish e.g. an early period Caravaggio from a "fairly early period" Caravaggio. And the problem is compounded by today's graffiti artists, who change "period" almost every 5 minutes, it sometimes seems!

Take local Worcester graffiti artist Patrick "Jester" Dunham. Please hahaha (!). See this story [Source: Onion News]

I can see Dunham is already moving from his "very early period" into his "fairly early period" with that bombshell shocker, can't you, art fans (!).

And even the classic painters of the past had their "periods" too. Take Renoir!

But, in general, how DO art historians tell, for example, a late Renoir from a fairly-late Renoir?

My medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I have often wondered about this, and tonight, when the both of us, an exhausted "Yours Truly" and an even more exhausted "Mrs Yours Truly" (!) are collapsed on the couch for an evening of TV viewing we get the answer, quite by chance, during a re-run of the classic 1980's sitcom " 'Allo 'Allo' ", set in wartime France.

Lovers of this sitcom will know that it's based around the adventures of long-suffering French café-owner René (played by Gorden Kaye) trying to keep the peace between the local French Resistance and his key demographic customer-base - locally stationed German army officers - while "carrying on" with his two waitresses Yvette and Maria, behind the back of his wife Edith (played by Carmen Silvera).

In this scene, local Gestapo chief Herr Flick, had 3 versions of the classic Van Klomp painting "The Madonna with the Big Boobies". One is genuine, and the other two are forgeries manufactured by the local French Resistance.

Herr Flick needs to know which of the three paintings is the genuine Van Klomp, so that he can stash it away to sell after the war, so he asks local German officer, Lt. Gruber, an art-lover, to tell him which is the genuine one.

See? Simple really, after all, isn't it!

Lois and I laugh heartily at the artless simplicity of Lt Gruber's analysis, but then we are - like - "totally" exhausted tonight, sitting here on the couch in our new-build home in Malvern, trying to follow the vagaries of this sitcom's ever complicated plot (!).

"Why are you and Lois so exhausted tonight, Colin?", I hear you cry. [Not me, I gave up on this post and went to sleep several - like a billion, probably more (!) - column inches ago (!) - Ed]

Well, seeing as how you're eager to know (!), it's because we've been "old-codger-proofing" our house today in preparation for a visit tomorrow morning from one of Lois's fellow-church members Hilary, and her husband Richard. Lois has been baking scones, and we dashed out this morning to get a cake from the Co-op Supermarket in Barnard's Green, while I've been tidying up the house and vacuuming.

the Co-op Supermarket in Barnard's Green, where today we

buy a cake for tomorrow's visit plus a "Toad-in-the-Hole"

ready meal for two, to have after our visitors have gone

"But, Colin, why do you have to "old-codger-proof" the house?", I hear you cry! After all, you and Lois are old codgers yourselves and you live there all the time anyway.

Well, good question! And the reason is, sadly, that poor Richard, Wendy's husband, suffers from dementia. During the last visit we had from the couple, in our old house in Cheltenham, back in July 2021, while Lois and I were chatting with Hilary, Richard spent most of the visit moving from room to room in our house, examining the pictures on the wall and other features: ornaments, trinkets etc. After the couple left we did a thorough search of our house to check for anything amiss, but everything seemed okay.

flashback to July 2021, and our last visit from Hilary and Richard:

(left to right) Hilary, her husband Richard, and Lois,

on the floor is Bertie, Hilary's the dog.

So as a precaution today, I spend a lot of time hiding away all our most embarrassing possessions and display items, in case Richard goes "rooting about" in our drawers: cards which Lois and I have sent each other, embarrassing clothing items, plus all the illustrated "how to" manuals that we bought after my recent hip operation. You know the kind of thing - manuals for "recovering hip-o-holics [sic]" on "How to do this and that", mostly "that" (!).

We don't want Richard finding any of these and bringing them down to the living-room for an embarrassing "show and tell" session, to put it mildly!

Yes, it's all been a lot hard work today for both of us, and that's why it's nice this evening to really relax on the couch with this old 'Allo 'Allo sitcom tonight.

In this scene, café-owner René's wife Edith, has got hold of her husband's will, with its suspicious postscripts, leaving items of family furniture to one or other of his two young waitresses, Yvette and Maria.

In a postscript to her husband's will, for instance, Edith reads that waitress Yvette is going to inherit the family's 'collapsible sofa':