Stories and Articles

'Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent' ...

by Ean Lawrence

A narcotic sun shines from a cloudless sky as it always did in those long ago summers. A breeze off the sea tempers the heat and carries the compensation of the honeyed scent of the thrift clinging to the cliff-edge to the spectators on the downs, among whose select number there is a small, expectant boy who is attending his first cricket match.

In whites varying in shade from brilliant white to cream to ecru, the players take their allotted positions on the field, ready to act out a drama of epic proportions.

With a crack, the ball speeds off the bat and over the bleached and threadbare carpet, bouncing like a skimming pebble, evading the despairing lunge of the bowler as he tries in vain to prevent the ball reaching the boundary and the batsman getting the upper hand in the titanic struggle of wills. A small throng of gulls, loitering on the long-on boundary, is detonated as the ball passes through them and flips over the weathered rope that marks the boundary of the field of play. The eager boy rushes down the slope and picks up the battered ball and launches it back to the bowler, managing to get it half way to the heavy-footed player who is trying to raise his spirit and hopes for the next delivery. This time, he says to himself, he will get his man and send him back to the pavilion that shows almost as many shades of washed white as the players’ flannels and sweaters do. ‘Howzat?’ cry the fielders in unison. The umpire raises the fateful finger. As if on cue, the breeze mockingly rattles the numbers on the scoreboard, and there is, some would judge, an unseemly haste to change the details of the last man out before that last man out reaches the pavilion; even the aged sight screen, given voice by a breath of wind, croaks a mild rebuke. The bowler’s faith – and that of his captain - in his ability is proved not to have been misplaced: the final ball of the last over before the lunch interval - a cunning leg-break – sends the batsman to the dressing-room to explain his failure to his captain.

The young spectator returns to his seat, his hands stinging from the contribution he makes to the applause that accompanies the fielders as they retire, temporarily, from the fray. Containers of all kinds and conditions are prised open in no order of precedence among the crowd, although to describe the number of spectators present as a crowd is to mislead slightly. As if by some sleight of hand, the boy finds himself holding an enamelled mug of sweet tea in one hand and a banana sandwich in the other. Now that the opposition’s best batsman has been dismissed, this simple fare is transmuted into nectar and ambrosia, memorable sensations in this first, intoxicating experience of a live sporting event.

It’s not always possible or convenient to attend an event, whether it’s a sporting event, a concert or a theatrical performance. Anyway, you get as good, if not better, a view on the telly, don’t you? Certainly, you get a different perspective with the added benefit of replays in slow-motion and close-ups, often, these days, in high-definition, and the instant analysis of pundits. Of course, what you don’t get is the atmosphere of the event, the sensations of the sights, the sounds, the smells of being there in the moment that is unmediated through the television screen. There is something special about being in an audience attending a play or a concert or a championship with others of shared interests and purpose; it can be witnessed at the moment at Glastonbury and Wimbledon; even as we watch the event on television we know that it is not the same as being there.

Then there is the surprise, the shock, almost, of the authenticity of the experience of visiting an art gallery that houses famous works of art that we know but don’t know: the abstract sculptures in Barbara Hepworth’s garden in St Ives, the paintings in the high-ceilinged rooms in the National Gallery.

I entered the National Gallery through the grand, porticoed entrance that looks, with little sense of inferiority, towards Nelson’s Column. As this was an unplanned visit, there was no aim to it other than to see what there was to see in the limited time I had available to me.

Entering Room 43, there were two women who would - what shall I say? – make a similar claim to that made by Miss Jean Brodie: that they, too, were in their prime. They were standing before one of the paintings regarded as one of the masterpieces of the impressionist school - Renoir’s ‘Umbrellas’. However good the quality might be of the reproductions of paintings that are presented in those Art books that rest reproachfully on coffee tables the feature of the pictures that you never quite get a sense of (if you are not familiar with the real thing) is their size. Renoir’s ‘Umbrellas’, for instance, occupies almost the whole of one of the end walls of the room. Standing in contemplation of Renoir’s work, the pair of matrons was joined by the daughter of one of them.

Their attention was then re-focused onto a painting by Picasso, ‘Child with Dove’. Much to the embarrassment of the daughter, her mother admitted that the picture always reminded of her of her daughter when her age  matched the age of the child depicted in the painting. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘that was before the old boy got a bit lax about anatomical accuracy.’ I furtively looked from the picture to the young woman and back again to the painting. I attempted to make the imaginative leap. I found that, faced with the juxtaposition of the physicality of a young woman in her late teens and the painted image of a child of five or six years, it was a leap that I was both unable and unwilling to make, incapable of making a super-imposition register; I lacked, necessarily, that essential maternal sentiment, a medium through which present reality can be reconciled with memories the truth or accuracy of which I was unable to verify. Nevertheless, I couldn’t avoid the hope, for both their sakes, that the mother’s wistful response to pigment on canvass was not untrue.

Such experiences can result in a seed being sown in fertile soil; and so, perhaps, the next move is from engaged spectator to engaged player or practitioner. It may not lead on to great glory, but there is the simple satisfaction of the amateur that can be enough of an outcome to sustain the spiritual life of the eternal man, and widen and expand cultural perceptions and enhance an unexceptional life.