Retrospective: Getting Serious

In our time in Paris and London we visited a fair number of art galleries. I found myself pondering therein on the intensely serious expressions worn by most of the coves being immortalised in the various works of art on display. This was especially true of those whose features were enshrined in marble - the fate of quite a number of French aristos and gentlemen. Now I know Art (with a capital A) is a serious and expensive business, particularly when it comes to the use of marble, and I suppose you'd want to enter eternity - or however long marble lasts - looking your best, but is that enough to explain the glum expressions on our chums?

I think not. The more miserable faces I encountered, the more the suspicion grew that these chaps looked so serious basically because they took themselves so seriously. Either that or they were also suffering bad cases of toothache. I'm no great art buff when it comes to the visual stuff but one of the saving graces of modern art (some of it, anyway) is that it can be quite funny.

There also seemed to be a lot of pictures involving severed heads in the Louvre (generally Biblical rather than in association with the guillotine.) Quite an odd subject for a painting when you think about it. Not the sort of thing you'd want on your dining room wall I'd have thought.