We agreed that we ought to get dressed, leave the holiday apartment and do something else for a few hours in the evening. There was a choice. Richard lll performed outside on a grassy bank, or we could drive over to the St Ives School of Painting for the drop-in life drawing class. We had a copy of the play with us to acquaint ourselves with the plot. But while reading it she took offence at a
misogynistic speech made by the hunchback King. Also the weather looked a bit uncertain. So the life drawing class it was.
She paints and draws and is familiar with life drawing classes. I’m used only to six-inch brushes and Dulux Weathershield. I’m not a prude — at least, not lately I’m not. Neither am I against public nudity. In fact, I live close to, and occasionally lie on, a popular nudist beach. But I wasn’t sure that I wanted to scrutinise minutely a naked stranger from an embarrassingly short distance, then try to depict what I saw on a sheet of paper, then have my effort criticised by an art expert.
Knowing something of the history of the Porthmeor studios at the St Ives School of Painting (est. 1938), and of its famous alumni such as Terry Frost and Patrick Heron, I also expressed an anxiety that whoever was tutoring might resent having to lower themselves to comment on my toilet-wall-style of representation.
‘Idiot,’ she said.
We arrived a minute late. The studio was in a loft with a huge skylight and window views of Atlantic rollers breaking on the beach. It was exactly the kind of sexy, dusty, paint-spattered, cluttered, perhaps 1950s atmosphere I’d fondly expected. Faced with the reality, however, I cynically wondered whether it was artful design.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in