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Art Appreciation We are about to go on holiday, as Tamsin will have two weeks off school. We haven't had a proper 'holiday' for a couple of years, in one sense of the word. Just over two years ago we spent a few days in London being tourists, and it was great fun. Our trip back to Australia from England had 'holiday' elements in it, certainly; especially the three days in London and the stopover in Singapore - but with an undercurrent of tension caused by the momentous step we were taking in returning to Melbourne after nine years away. This holiday is pure holiday, no hidden agendas, and I intend to enjoy it. We're only going to Canberra, nowhere exotic - imagine a few days in Washington D.C., though a Washington shrunk to the size of a large country town. Graham went to university there, we have a number of friends there we want to catch up with, and my father lives nearby. He has never met the children and it will be a nice opportunity for them to get to know each other. We are also keen to visit the National Gallery of Australia. It contains an excellent collection of Australian and international art, and has just acquired, at vast expense, a David Hockney painting of the Grand Canyon. I have only seen the newspaper reproductions so far, but it looks magnificent and I can't wait to see it. And I want the children to visit the gallery, for the Hockney and for everything else. We get some strange looks taking young children around art galleries and museums. There are times when it doesn't work. The two to four-year age, for instance, can be a trial if they're not interested. Angus can be a real pain if he isn't a gallery mood, so we have to judge it carefully. Tamsin at the age of two ran amok in a couple of museums that I particularly wanted to visit, and I was very resentful of having to take her out after complaints. However she also fell in love with David Hockney's daschunds at the age of two, and has shown a keen critical appreciation of his work ever since. We had been on holiday in the Lake District in England, and on the way south we decided to make a (fairly massive) detour to Yorkshire. In a place called Saltash, an old mill has been converted into an art gallery/restaurant/happening sort of complex, with personal input by David Hockney, who is a Yorkshireman. At the time there was an exhibition of his paintings of his dogs. (He also designed a cute dog picture for the restaurant logo - we succumbed and bought one of the cups, which we treasure). Tamsin was immediately taken by the dog pictures. (This was only a few days after she had thrown a tantrum in a provincial art gallery. Presumably she found it rather more boring than pictures of dogs). Six months later, the Royal Academy in London staged a major retrospective of Hockney's works, and we risked the experiment of taking Tamsin along. She rode in a backpack and made appreciative noises about various of the paintings, particularly the brightly colored ones. A couple of people commented on how unusual it was to see such a young child appreciating art. Some people glared at us for daring to bring her along. She didn't misbehave, though some of her art appreciation was a little loud! Just before we left London, I took the children to the Tate Gallery to see a Jackson Pollock retrospective. Tamsin was nearly six, Angus 2 3/4. He exclaimed at a number of the brighter pictures (lovely colors! was his favorite critical pronouncement. I'm not sure that Jackson Pollock would have approved!) Tamsin could read the names of the paintings, and wanted to talk about what the names meant and how they related to the paintings. She had a lot of intelligent things to say about them, and was fascinated when I explained how the later 'splatter' works were created. Again, we were glared at because I had children - the only ones there, but it was a weekday in school term. Neither of them misbehaved, they were merely speaking above a reverent whisper. And yet again, we took them to a retrospective of an Australian artist/sculptor called Bruce Armstrong the other weekend. Again, they responded to the strong, almost primitive colors and shapes in his work. He specializes in rather totemic wooden sculptures, and paintings that reflect the subject matter of his 3D work. Angus was thrilled at all the animals in the exhibition, and talked about them incessantly. Tamsin wanted to talk, again, about the titles and how they related to the art works, and about what she could see in them. It was a delightful experience that proved to us that they are growing up with a love and appreciation of art. The difference between this experience and the ones in England - children were positively encouraged at this gallery. In fact at the time we went (Saturday lunchtime) there were more families with children than people without. (Not that all Australian galleries are quite as tolerant - I was told to put Angus's drink away in the National Gallery of Victoria, and was forced in the end to take him into the restaurant because he was running around and I was getting so many filthy looks from the gallery attendants). We aren’t trying to hothouse our children, we just want them to grow up loving and understanding art the way we were both brought up to do. And I think, so far, that we may be having some success.
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