Page 15 - Joseph Wright of Derby: Virgils's Tomb & The Grand Tour.

FOREWORD

‘Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present’.
ALBERT CAMUS

Some forty or so years ago, as a young man just starting out in the world of art dealing, it appeared to me then
that my chosen profession was populated by‘the giants of yore’, a select band of art historians who all also appeared
to be polymaths. My Oxford days had seen exposure to such legendary figures as Garret Mattingly, Billy Pantin
and Christopher Seton-Watson for history tuition and the inimitable Edgar Wind, as well as Otto Pächt and
Nikolaus Pevsner for art history. At the Courtauld Institute I came under the influence of Anthony Blunt and George
Zarnecki but student life there was somewhat manacled, rigid and nothing truly prepared me for exposure to the wider
world of academia. First at Colnaghi’s, and then later as an independent dealer, I came into contact with a breed of art
historian that now appears to be all but extinct in a world now primarily driven by an emphasis on ‘specialisation’. It is
as if the mould that once formed such larger than life figures as Federico Zeri, Carlo Volpe, Giuliano Briganti, Ellis
Waterhouse, Kenneth Clark and several others has been broken. All were possessed of a unique and widespread knowledge
of history combined with culture and art that was all but encyclopaedic.To these, in their own fields of specialisation, I
should also add Denis Mahon, Michael Jaffé and of course John Pope-Hennessy. Last, but by no means least, was the
redoubtable editor of The Burlington Magazine, Benedict (Ben) Nicholson.Today there are but a few survivors from this
former pantheon yet Nicholas Penny, whose extensive knowledge encompasses a plethora of fields, stands out as a modern
example of pansophism.What was striking about all these ‘giants’ was, and still remains, their humanity, incorporating
a willingness to befriend and assist a younger person in the field while at the same time being generous in bestowing their
unique gift - a sapient fount of knowledge.As I quoted from Antal Szerb’s Journey by Moonlight in our 2011 catalogue on
James Ward ‘…Scholarship, the fact that your mind can take in the thousand-fold splendour of things, doesn’t cost a penny’ but I
might also add here that I personally subscribe to something Bertolt Brecht once said, namely that‘Everyone needs help from
everyone’.This, I believe, to be a fundamental and universal truth and in consequence no man, or woman, should ever be
so misguided as to consider themselves to be an island for so to do is supremely selfish and ultimately belittles the humanity
of the individual.1 Help or sound advice when offered should be especially welcomed and accepted with gratitude.‘Real
generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present’.

lll

1. From the 1920s onward from Kafka through Sartre, culminating in the 1970s with such cult figures as HunterThompson (‘We are all alone,born alone,die
alone ...we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that,in spite of our company,we were alone the whole way.’ The Proud Highway:Saga of a Desperate Southern
Gentleman,1955-1967), there was a trend first towards nihilism, then existentialism which promoted a‘heresy’ of the‘auto-independant self’ reliant on
no other human being.This theory is in direct contrast to core Judaic and Christian principles and beliefs and is fundamentally flawed as any examination
would show. It was in vogue for a while, like all counter cultures, precisely because it flew in the face of established tradition. It has now been seen for
what it is - an empty fallacy.

15