Seeing the light

One of the more considerable pleasures of exhibition-viewing outside London recently was the Claude show at the Ashmolean. London exhibitions are becoming mobbed by crowds, and there is little enjoyment in shoving or being shoved in the supposed pursuit of artistic enlightenment, and absolutely no chance to contemplate individual pictures in the hurly-burly. As the devout will queue up to kiss the wizened toe of a saint, now the football fans of art will jostle to snatch the merest passing glimpse of a Leonardo or a Freud. The being there is all: the experience has very little to do with serious looking. Afterwards, you join the ranks of the blessed and tell your friends that you too were in the presence. There is apparently much comfort to be drawn from such sharing. What a delightful contrast it was at the Ashmolean to be able to linger in front of individual Claude paintings, or the exquisite drawings, and not be harried by a press of impatient culture-tasters.