Pre-Raphaelite And Other Masters

The private art collection which Lord Lloyd-Webber has accumulated over 40 years: from pre-Raphaelites to Picasso and Stanley Spencer.

(Edited highlights of the panel's review taken from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight Review.)

DEBORAH BULL:
You have to remember it's not an overview of Victorian art, it's one man's personal choice. I found the whole thing incredibly theatrical. Many of the paintings were mini-dramas. They had costume, lighting, texture. You expected the figures to break into a ballad as you went through. What was interesting for me was the contrast in the versimilitude in some of the detail, some of the fabrics, the landscape but complete lifelessness of the faces. Nobody had nipples, or gender or expression on the face. And it only lifted when the artist was behind the bar, showing behind the scenes of Victorian life. The Stanley Spencer's had wit and humour for me. At least they were alive.

PAUL MORLEY:
I was thinking which piece of music bought which thing. The Picasso cost £26 million. It's interesting what you say about the lack of nipples, his songs lack nipples. I think I would rather have seen Michael Barrymore's art collection. It's a peculiar thing. It was unbelievable excessive somehow. Occasionally, one of his purchases is sweet. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with it. What he is telling me? That he is fabulously wealthy? There's something about him which is nerdy, and he's a fan of the Lord Of The Rings and the Narnia collection. He's like a nerd, instead of collecting Lord Of The Rings things, he collects these paintings.

ELAINE SHOWALTER:
I totally disagree with Paul. I thought it was a spectacular exhibit. An amazing collection and a great one. I think pre- Raphaelites are great painters, complex, with intellectual depth. It's a question of learning to look at them again. They have been sneered at and condescended to as he has. That's why he was attracted to them and loves them. That isn't what they're about. To make the equation is wrong. If you look in this collection, there are a lot of different ways you can put together pre- Raphaelite art, you look at the different Orphelias in the show, for the pre- Raphaelite, the Orphelia is like a Renaissance Madonna. It's the golden age of English painting.

PAUL MORLEY:
I agree, but one at a time. There's so much

ELAINE SHOWALTER:
It's an age of excess. The ceramics are astonishing. It's a big, big show.

DEBORAH BULL:
For me it was about the craft. The painterly techniques. Some of the fabrics you wanted to touch them.