The talent and skill of Van Dyck, as seen at the current Tate Britain exhibition, is unquestionable. A major hurdle for me is how these skills have been put to use, and Tate Britain's Van Dyck exhibition is like being locked in an attic full of Dorian Grays (albeit in need of a low-cal diet), who have long since returned to dust.

I do not subscribe to the myriad self-justifications of artists, nor the snobbery of so-called 'high' art that conveniently places heaven beneath the ceiling (and is expertly dismantled by John Carey in his book 'What Good are the Arts?'), and once again the big question imposes itself: how has the artist invested his gifts?
Judging from the Van Dyck portraits featured at Tate Britain, the vanity of each poser has given oxygen to the vanity of the painter, and, beyond historical reference and the mastering of painterly skills, there's little of universal relevance.
To make my point in a slightly different way, if the people in Van Dyck's paintings weren't Royal, powerful or rich (or all of these), would he ever have raised his brush in their honour?
Of course he wouldn't: the chief reason Van Dyck rendered their vanities immortal was that they paid him handsomely and bestowed upon him the worldly esteem he so obviously cherished. So, for me, Van Dyck's talents were invested for personal gain and to furnish his own existence. Whilst his fabulous skills will always command prime wall space and respect, I can only go so far down the road of appreciation for something that moves me not (nor was ever intended to).

I'm being a little unfair, because I'm sure many of those in Van Dyck's paintings were trapped in lives from which they could never escape (assuming they would want to). I am aware, too, that subtleties exist within those pictures that hint at a more human story, but, apart from trying to imagine (the later beheaded) Viscount Wentworth without his head, I am not interested enough to want to find out. The paintings on the walls are the result of paid psandering by 'the most fashionable artist of the day', and without their armour, finery and flattering 'fantasy', the subjects imprisoned still within those frames would be infinitely less interesting than people whose stories told in their exposed lives.

By the end of the Tate's Van Dyck exhibition, I felt as if I'd been a gatecrasher at a society ball, which was populated by the bejewelled and those who hold 'the lesser George jewel that denotes... membership of the elite Order of the Garter'.
I was unimpressed and I coveted not, though I was a little dejected that none of the guests saw fit to acknowledge my existence.
Wonderful skills. Shame about the glittering shallow ground.

The talent and skill of Van Dyck, as seen at the current Tate Britain exhibition, is unquestionable. A major hurdle for me is how these skills have been put to use, and Tate Britain's Van Dyck exhibition is like being locked in an attic full of Dorian Grays (albeit in need of a low-cal diet), who have long since returned to dust.

I do not subscribe to the myriad self-justifications of artists, nor the snobbery of so-called 'high' art that conveniently places heaven beneath the ceiling (and is expertly dismantled by John Carey in his book 'What Good are the Arts?'), and once again the big question imposes itself: how has the artist invested his gifts?
Judging from the Van Dyck portraits featured at Tate Britain, the vanity of each poser has given oxygen to the vanity of the painter, and, beyond historical reference and the mastering of painterly skills, there's little of universal relevance.
To make my point in a slightly different way, if the people in Van Dyck's paintings weren't Royal, powerful or rich (or all of these), would he ever have raised his brush in their honour?
Of course he wouldn't: the chief reason Van Dyck rendered their vanities immortal was that they paid him handsomely and bestowed upon him the worldly esteem he so obviously cherished. So, for me, Van Dyck's talents were invested for personal gain and to furnish his own existence. Whilst his fabulous skills will always command prime wall space and respect, I can only go so far down the road of appreciation for something that moves me not (nor was ever intended to).

I'm being a little unfair, because I'm sure many of those in Van Dyck's paintings were trapped in lives from which they could never escape (assuming they would want to). I am aware, too, that subtleties exist within those pictures that hint at a more human story, but, apart from trying to imagine (the later beheaded) Viscount Wentworth without his head, I am not interested enough to want to find out. The paintings on the walls are the result of paid psandering by 'the most fashionable artist of the day', and without their armour, finery and flattering 'fantasy', the subjects imprisoned still within those frames would be infinitely less interesting than people whose stories told in their exposed lives.

By the end of the Tate's Van Dyck exhibition, I felt as if I'd been a gatecrasher at a society ball, which was populated by the bejewelled and those who hold 'the lesser George jewel that denotes... membership of the elite Order of the Garter'.
I was unimpressed and I coveted not, though I was a little dejected that none of the guests saw fit to acknowledge my existence.
Wonderful skills. Shame about the glittering shallow ground.