Christopher Allen

In the beginning, there were only myths. For the Greeks, the island of Crete was a distant and strange land and yet the site of some their most important traditions: Zeus was taken there to save him from being swallowed by his father Kronos, and raised in a sacred cave on Mount Ida. Later he took the form of a bull to abduct the beautiful Phoenician princess Europa and carry her across the sea to Crete, where she became the mother of King Minos. Her brother Cadmus was sent to look for her, but failed in this quest and ended up founding the city of Thebes instead.

Portraiture has a long history. The earliest naturalistic portraits were made by the Egyptians, even if in most cases the official effigies of the Pharaohs and aristocracy remained highly idealised and artificially youthful. It flourished in Hellenistic Greece and was eagerly adopted by the Romans: senatorial busts from the republican period anticipate Oliver Cromwell’s famous demand for a “warts and all” account of the subject. Highly sophisticated portraiture continued throughout the imperial period, and then collapsed with the fall of Rome.

We take it for granted today that artistic styles change and succeed each other as inevitably as the seasons, or the times of day. But this is not always the case. In tribal cultures, nothing changes from millennium to millennium; repetition is the rule and continuity is the priority. Even among advanced civilisations, consistency is generally valued above innovation; in Egypt the canons of sculptural proportion and the conventions of painting remained identical for thousands of years.

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J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851), who was born 250 years ago, remains the most influential painter that Britain has ever produced; indeed his pre-eminence has only become clearer in the last generation or so, with the rediscovery of the idea of the sublime at the end of last century. It is clear as soon as you walk into the vast room filled with contemporary works inspired by Turner’s vision that opens the impressive exhibition at the Gippsland Art Gallery, another example of the aesthetic and scholarly ambition to be found in Victorian regional galleries.

J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851), who was born 250 years ago, remains the most influential painter that Britain has ever produced; indeed his pre-eminence has only become clearer in the last generation or so, with the rediscovery of the idea of the sublime at the end of last century. It is clear as soon as you walk into the vast room filled with contemporary works inspired by Turner’s vision that opens the impressive exhibition at the Gippsland Art Gallery, another example of the aesthetic and scholarly ambition to be found in Victorian regional galleries.

Art history is not a discipline separate from history in the broader sense, let alone a genteel pastime disconnected from the great themes of social development. In fact, if the greatest theme in the story of humanity is the character of different cultures and civilisations, the history of art, literature and music – as Jacob Burckhardt was one of the first to understand in the 19th century – offers perspectives at least as profound as those we gain from the study of military, economic and diplomatic history.

Art history is not a discipline separate from history in the broader sense, let alone a genteel pastime disconnected from the great themes of social development. In fact, if the greatest theme in the story of humanity is the character of different cultures and civilisations, the history of art, literature and music – as Jacob Burckhardt was one of the first to understand in the 19th century – offers perspectives at least as profound as those we gain from the study of military, economic and diplomatic history.

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