For Laura Cumming, Dutch art is a placid paradise with the countdown to a cataclysm ticking away in the background. The immaculately swept streets and waxed floors in the paintings, the thin ice that supports a crowd of skaters in a frozen winter, the churches that are containers for mellow light and silence – all are instantly annihilated by the big bang of the book’s title. The Delft Thunderclap in 1654 was the detonation of 40 tonnes of gunpowder, stored for the city’s defence in the cellar of a former convent and probably set alight by a spark when a guard turned his key in a rusty lock or swung his lantern carelessly. Buildings imploded, and numberless people were crushed by the rubble. As if still reeling from an aftershock, Cumming is left trying to balance the safety or sanctity of art against the accidental violence of life, both on that day in the 17th century and in her personal experience of rupture and irreparable loss.
Among those killed by the thunderclap was Carel Fabritius, the painter whose eerily calm A View of Delft in the National Gallery steadied Cumming during her “volatile and confused” early days in London. The book begins with her declaration of love for the painting, which she remembers visiting almost daily before she drifted off to trysts with someone she admits she did not love. Her actual boyfriend paled before Fabritius’s “darkly handsome” musician, who lolls beside his lute and viol, and Cumming wished herself out of clamorous, chaotic London into serenely empty Delft. Dutch art still consoles her by holding out the hope of “a perfectible world”. During the nervy Covid lockdowns, she kept a reproduction of Vermeer’s The Little Street pinned to a wall beside her desk as a pacifier. The apertures in Vermeer’s gabled facade invited her into “a next-door microcosm for the mind and eye”, subduing her to a stillness like that of the figure in the painting who sits hunched over some needlework inside her house.
The images Cumming studies so raptly stop time, in an “optical act” that works like hypnosis. The water in Jan van Goyen’s landscapes forgets to flow, and clouds pause above their reflections in the mirrored surface of a river. That reverie turns beatific in Vermeer’s View of Delft, where Cumming calls the stepped roofs of the houses “stairways to heaven”; even more mystically, she says that the bucket carried by a maid in a painting by Pieter de Hooch is “blessed by the sunlight”. This kind of appreciative attention slows down the flickery eye and extends its range, and as Cumming maintains her vigil she sees beyond the moment framed on the wall and glimpses a kind of eternity. The hat of a brewer in a Frans Hals portrait becomes “so large it has its own planetary halo”, while some peaches painted by Adriaen Coorte are “side-lit in deep darkness like two phases of the moon in outer space”.
In a detour, Cumming discusses the paranormal phenomenon known in the Outer Hebrides as second sight. During his time in the 1940s in a croft on the Isle of Lewis, her father, James Cumming, painted one of these prophets, a misty figure with a witch’s adder stone as his extra eye. Cumming has her own verbal equivalent to the seer’s visionary gift. Described by her, a group of prickly shells in a still life by Coorte performs a stationary ballet, and she even elicits music from the mouth of a pearly conch in the group. “The eye sees,” she says in an enchanted hush, “and it hears.”
Such magical charms fail to muffle the thunderclap, which resonates ominously throughout the book. Cumming pictures the “mushroom cloud” of dust it produced, then compares it to the collapse of the World Trade Center and to the unsafe cargo of ammonium nitrate that tore apart the Beirut port in 2020. With silent stealth, the explosion recurs in a sunburst that rendered Cumming’s daughter instantaneously colourblind, and in the unseen growth of a tumour that killed her father. But the blast is also defused and startlingly diverted into a series of aesthetic epiphanies. To compensate for the thunder, Cumming finds a “lightning strike of geometry, symmetry and sheer verticality” in an avenue of alder trees by Hobbema. Another “lightning flash” of yellow shines from a bird’s wing painted by Fabritius, and she is dazzled by Vermeer’s “pinpricks of luminous paint that crackle and glow”.
Yet Cumming keeps helplessly circling back to the stark clash between art’s composure and the catastrophe of the thunderclap, never entirely satisfied by her own quest for a “redemptive grace” that is dispensed by light and by the brushstrokes of painters. Then, on the final page, as she gazes at Fabritius’s The Goldfinch – his most tender and painful image, in which the tethered bird hops as near the end of its perch as its chain will allow – she resolves the dispute in a small miracle of perception. Her eye, probing the surface, uncovers ballistic evidence that explains why this fragile picture survived when Fabritius’s house collapsed on it. I won’t spoil the deductive climax, except to say it gives off a brilliant flash of imaginative ignition as the book’s two opposed ideas electrically connect. When I read Cumming’s last paragraph, the baleful rumble of the Delft disaster became an outburst of delighted, admiring laughter.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
In a case that has sent shockwaves through the Vancouver Island art community, a local art dealer has been charged with one count of fraud over $5,000. Calvin Lucyshyn, the former operator of the now-closed Winchester Galleries in Oak Bay, faces the charge after police seized hundreds of artworks, valued in the tens of millions of dollars, from various storage sites in the Greater Victoria area.
Alleged Fraud Scheme
Police allege that Lucyshyn had been taking valuable art from members of the public under the guise of appraising or consigning the pieces for sale, only to cut off all communication with the owners. This investigation began in April 2022, when police received a complaint from an individual who had provided four paintings to Lucyshyn, including three works by renowned British Columbia artist Emily Carr, and had not received any updates on their sale.
Further investigation by the Saanich Police Department revealed that this was not an isolated incident. Detectives found other alleged victims who had similar experiences with Winchester Galleries, leading police to execute search warrants at three separate storage locations across Greater Victoria.
Massive Seizure of Artworks
In what has become one of the largest art fraud investigations in recent Canadian history, authorities seized approximately 1,100 pieces of art, including more than 600 pieces from a storage site in Saanich, over 300 in Langford, and more than 100 in Oak Bay. Some of the more valuable pieces, according to police, were estimated to be worth $85,000 each.
Lucyshyn was arrested on April 21, 2022, but was later released from custody. In May 2024, a fraud charge was formally laid against him.
Artwork Returned, but Some Remain Unclaimed
In a statement released on Monday, the Saanich Police Department confirmed that 1,050 of the seized artworks have been returned to their rightful owners. However, several pieces remain unclaimed, and police continue their efforts to track down the owners of these works.
Court Proceedings Ongoing
The criminal charge against Lucyshyn has not yet been tested in court, and he has publicly stated his intention to defend himself against any pending allegations. His next court appearance is scheduled for September 10, 2024.
Impact on the Local Art Community
The news of Lucyshyn’s alleged fraud has deeply affected Vancouver Island’s art community, particularly collectors, galleries, and artists who may have been impacted by the gallery’s operations. With high-value pieces from artists like Emily Carr involved, the case underscores the vulnerabilities that can exist in art transactions.
For many art collectors, the investigation has raised concerns about the potential for fraud in the art world, particularly when it comes to dealing with private galleries and dealers. The seizure of such a vast collection of artworks has also led to questions about the management and oversight of valuable art pieces, as well as the importance of transparency and trust in the industry.
As the case continues to unfold in court, it will likely serve as a cautionary tale for collectors and galleries alike, highlighting the need for due diligence in the sale and appraisal of high-value artworks.
While much of the seized artwork has been returned, the full scale of the alleged fraud is still being unraveled. Lucyshyn’s upcoming court appearances will be closely watched, not only by the legal community but also by the wider art world, as it navigates the fallout from one of Canada’s most significant art fraud cases in recent memory.
Art collectors and individuals who believe they may have been affected by this case are encouraged to contact the Saanich Police Department to inquire about any unclaimed pieces. Additionally, the case serves as a reminder for anyone involved in high-value art transactions to work with reputable dealers and to keep thorough documentation of all transactions.
As with any investment, whether in art or other ventures, it is crucial to be cautious and informed. Art fraud can devastate personal collections and finances, but by taking steps to verify authenticity, provenance, and the reputation of dealers, collectors can help safeguard their valuable pieces.
