It is a long time since the art critics of the British newspapers have been so dismissive of an exhibition as they have been with regard to the "Art of Bloomsbury" at the Tate Gallery in London.
Generally speaking, these critics take a thoughtful, considered approach. They are well versed in the history of art, yet they are always open to new ideas. Their antennae are particularly tuned to work that is likely to be controversial, yet they are often trenchant in their views and they pick their words carefully. But they can tie themselves in knots too, and some of them did so recently when reviewing the Tate exhibition of work by the Turner Prize nominees. Their reviews reached comical heights of tangled verbosity when they tried to come to terms with the installation by Tracey Emin, namely her infamous soiled bed, complemented by filthy underwear, used condoms and other unmentionables.
Needless to say, though many viewers found the Emin bed disgusting, none of the critics used this word (one critic did use the word "fresh" last year in describing the work of Turner Prize winner Chris Ofili, who uses dried elephant dung). The point is not that they all entirely approved of the Turner Prize entries - they didn't - but that they were at such pains to show their intellectual authority in the area, their sophisticated weariness at having to stand up for modern art yet again, and of course their complete absence of shock, that most plebeian reaction.
The "Art of Bloomsbury" exhibition, a selection of work by Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, has therefore come to the critics like a breath of stale air. At last, they have found themselves able to lash out in unison, without much thinking or analysis needed. They have jumped at the opportunity to become simple bootboys, and trample the exhibition into the ground. When these critics want to praise something, they seem to feel obliged to dress up their language, but when they want to express scorn, the language becomes very simple. The Bloomsbury artists are "not good painters". It's just "dud art". Duncan Grant? "He really is crap." The whole thing is "a waste of space". (All from the Independent).
The Guardian, meanwhile, dismisses the Bloomsbury trio as third-rate, unashamed borrowers. Critic Adrian Searle said: "There were lots of people milling about in there admiring and enjoying it all. I wasn't." (Oh dear.) Searle says the Bloomsbury painters "were, as we critics put it, a bit crap". Grant, in particular, is "all enthusiasm and no substance".
In contrast, even though the critics on the whole didn't like Tracey Emin's grotty bed at the Turner Prize exhibition, they had to show they had at least thought about it, and were completely familiar with her previous work, and could make all the appropriate references. There could be no summary dismissal, as with the Bloomsbury artists. So those who decided to dislike the Emin bed finally decided it was simply boring (a far more insulting accusation for the artist than "disgusting", and much more worrying in terms of career prospects and money).
Regarding the Bloomsbury painters, what they are up against now (if the dead are up against anything) is not so much an antagonism towards their work as a long-held antagonism towards the whole of the Bloomsbury period and the people involved in it. Obviously, many of these luminaries at its centre - Fry, Grant, Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell, and Strachey and Keynes - had their faults, but the negative image problem has largely been created by the unceasing outpouring of dull books about Bloomsbury, as well as by the odious modern biography industry, which has concentrated so offensively on their personal shortcomings and inadequacies, rather than on their work, at least some of which deserves serious reconsideration. Even feminists appear to have entirely deserted Virginia Woolf, an early and ardent champion of women's rights, as well as being an excellent critic and underrated writer.
It has been rather grudgingly recognised that part of the reasoning behind the show is to pay a historical debt to a notable intersection of modern art and British art, but the critics don't think that justifies the exhibition. The outpouring of bile just might also have something to do with lingering envy of Roger Fry, who set London alight with the post-Impressionist exhibition in 1910, and became Britain's most influential art critic.
