We must confess that religious paintings are not our favourite subject, and we've tended to regard Spanish Catholic art as being, well, just a little too religious to cope with. So we approached the Francisco de Zurbarán exhibition at the National Gallery in London with a certain amount of trepidation. A degree of contrition is due.... Yes, there were monks, altarpieces and lots of saints, but we were blown away by Zurbarán's ability to depict textures and fabrics and to convey an intensity of feeling. It's an absolutely excellent exhibition, full of truly beautiful paintings. Such religious art was intended to bring the faithful closer to God, to bridge the gap between Heaven and Earth, in an age when many could not read. Zurbarán was a master at it. Let's start with a saint: Just take a look at the fabrics, trimmings and gems in this picture. And the garments are even more striking when you are stood in front of this nearly life-size figure. This is Casild...
The ritual humiliations of the security queue, the lack of leg room, the warnings to keep your seat belt loosely fastened: That's not the way to travel.
This is the way to travel. Or it used to be: An elegant ship, even more elegant fellow passengers, the finest of food and a speedy, comfortable and romantic voyage across the seas. It's all recalled in Ocean Liners: Speed and Style, an entertaining exhibition at London's Victoria & Albert Museum that awakens a nostalgia for an era that most of us never knew.
Film, models, posters and original artefacts from vessels like the Queen Mary, the United States and the Canberra help to tell the story. And, of course, from perhaps the most famous liner of all, the Titanic. Among the iconic posters in the first room is one advertising the Titanic's planned first sailing back east across the Atlantic from New York, a voyage that never took place.
The golden age of the liner was perhaps between the two world wars, when building and operating ever faster and more sophisticated ships was a major expression of national identity, with government funding playing a big role. It was the sort of soft power that today would have its focus on bringing home more and more Olympic medals.
Just before World War II, the Normandie must have been the classiest and most opulent ship on the Atlantic. The V&A has furniture and lacquerwork from the liner (special feature: flowers from France's colonies) that give a taste of the elegance. In an adjoining gallery, the equivalents from the Queen Mary (competing special feature: woods from Britain's colonies) are equally plush, but maybe a bit staid in comparison with the Normandie's Gallic panache.
Many of the Normandie's fittings had been removed when the ship caught fire and sank in New York while it was being refitted as a troopship during the war. When peace was restored, the Americans decided that no combustible materials would be used in their new liner, the United States. Its interiors are all metal and glass, commissioned, remarkably, from an all-woman design firm.
Of course, postwar design was less flamboyant, but an English pub mural from the Oronsay looks like it could have come from a cross-Channel ferry. And when we get to the 1960s, the QE2's streamlined shapes seem very much standard for their time.
Today, even frequent flyers are somewhat restricted in their baggage allowance, but the Duke and Duchess of Windsor once travelled on the United States with 100 pieces of exclusive luggage:
To a soundtrack of seagulls, you get a flavour of what life was like on board. Naturally, in keeping with the times, it was rigidly stratified. First class, located on the upper decks, provided a lot more room, far classier surroundings and better food. The cheaper, more cramped berths and dining areas were down by the waterline.
While the moneyed grown-ups prepared to strut their stuff in their evening wear, some beautifully tailored examples of which are on display, their offspring also enjoyed a pampered existence on board. Here's a chair from the (first-class) playroom on the Normandie:
But the Titanic is ever-present. Among the more than 250 objects on show is a battered deckchair from the doomed liner (complete with slot for reservation ticket; no need to bag it with a towel). And as you make your way past a liner-related movie montage that includes Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio (tip: the best clip is the one from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with Marilyn Monroe), you'll come to the final artefact in the exhibition:
As if floating on the icy North Atlantic, it's a fragment of the panel from the Titanic's first-class lounge, returning to the UK for the first time since 1912. A poignant way to end a splendid voyage back in time.
Practicalities
Ocean Liners: Speed and Style is at the Victoria & Albert Museum in South Kensington until June 17. The V&A is open daily from 1000 to 1745, with late opening on Fridays until 2200. Full-price tickets cost £18 and can be bought online here. The museum is just five minutes on foot from South Kensington station on the London Underground.
If you're a long way from the V&A
You can get an unexpected taste of the Titanic in the far north of England. Much of the first-class lounge from its sister ship, the Olympic, was later used to fit out the restaurant in the White Swan Hotel in Alnwick, Northumberland. It's rather fine, if a bit bizarre.Images
Empress of Britain colour lithograph poster for Canadian Pacific Railways, J.R. Tooby, 1920–31. (c) Victoria and Albert Museum
Normandie in New York, 1935-39. Collection French Lines
Luggage previously belonging to the Duke of Windsor, Maison Goyard, 1940s. (c) Miottel Museum, Berkeley, California
Children's chair from the first-class playroom on the Normandie, designed by Marc Simon and Jacqueline Duché, about 1934, France. (c) Miottel Museum, Berkeley, California
Wooden panel fragment from an overdoor in the first-class lounge on Titanic, about 1911. (c) Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
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