In Defence Of Cecil Beaton

[poliphilo]

This review annoyed me. Cecil Beaton was an artist with a very distinct vision of the world. He saw it as a game of masks (which it is) and rather good fun (which it can be). To bang him about the head because he wasn't also a social realist is fatuous. Some people photograph duchesses, others photograph dossers. What's so wrong with that? Call it a division of labour. 

It's a fundamental mistake to suppose an artist's work trivial just because his subjects are. (That Watteau, what a lightweight!) Beaton was one of the few photographers in the history of the medium whose best work is immediately recognisable as his own and no-one else's. He left us a wonderful- unrivalled- gallery of portraits of mid-century poseurs, from Edith Sitwell to Mick Jagger. He also (but Conrad doesn't know or acknowledge this) had a very good war.

Comments

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

That Peter Conrad seems like a tedious twerp. He's just jealous because Beaton got to sleep with Greta Garbo and he didn't.

I always feel Joanna Trollope gets underestimated or dismissed by critics because she writes about the rural middle class. If she wrote that well about Islingtonites or poor Mancunians she'd be booker material.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I like Trollope too. She gets inside people's heads.

[sovay]

Some people photograph duchesses, others photograph dossers. What's so wrong with that?

I think it's valuable to have both sides. (And who's taking the pictures in between?) I like Beaton's photography: I like this photograph of Beaton. The casual anti-Semitism annoys me as it always does.

He also (but Conrad doesn't know or acknowledge this) had a very good war.

I don't suppose you can get a book of his shipbuilding photographs? Those look wonderful.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That picture of Beaton and Hockney is sweet. I'm a big admirer of Hockney.

The anti-semitism is depressing. I only found out about it today, when I was doing my research.

I don't think the ship-building photos are available on their own, but I believe there's a collection of the war work.