Seven Ages of Britain began in the same week as A History of the World in 100 Objects on Radio 4. You wait a prodigiously long time for a massive cultural overview and then two come along at once. Do they think in a joined-up way about these things at the BBC? Or has this double helping been a sign of a wider moral and structural chaos that characterises the new world disorder? Last night David Dimbleby concluded his tour of two millennia of British art. It has, inevitably, been a bit of a sprint. In this final episode, the horror of the trenches was wrapped up in less screen time than it took to show Tracey Emin’s new line animation of a woman, legs splayed and frenetically wanking. Chaos? I think so.
We didn't actually see the money shot. The presenter's head was in the way. Where previous programmes in the series have tried within the allotted hour to sculpt a narrative imparting harmony and form to chunks of our history, the 20th century gave Dimbers a bit too much to chew on. It was billed as the age of ambition, in which artists put themselves at the service of society, only for successive wars to give way to prosperity, success and self-absorption. Or something like that. It certainly ended with Damien Hirst.
But the sense of British art's overarching story was barely there. War gave us Modernism. Peace gave us Pop Art. Seven Ages of Britain gave us half a paragraph on one, half a sentence on the other. The Blitz was seen through the sketches of Henry Moore, the creation of the NHS through the drawings of Barbara Hepworth. No sign of the sculptures they are actually known for.
Indeed, in service to the idea that this was the people’s century, there was a lot on stuff that didn’t, in even the most generous definition, belong in the story of Britain’s art. Dimbleby lovingly fondled an old wireless set. The Austin 7, he advised, was “a work of art in its own right”. And he should know. He used to drive one, and there he was in one of those old clips the BBC keeps on tap for these occasions, behind the wheel as a young pup, the even younger Dimbers Minor in the seat beside. On the more challenging hills, Dimbers Major recalled, the only way up was by reversing. Seven Ages of Britain ended its own journey by reversing uphill.
Dimbleby has made quite a few of these series now, and no doubt there’ll be another soon enough. He should probably go back to the distant past where he belongs. In front of Paul Nash’s The Menin Road, or Francis Bacon’s agonised response to the wartime atrocity, he doesn’t have the chops or possibly even the wiring to respond articulately and emotionally.
Maybe Kenneth Clark, his equal for poshness, would have struggled with the emetic end of the century too. Dimbers asked the questions like someone with a faint smell of aesthetic decay affronting his nostrils. And no wonder. If it wasn’t Anish Kapoor’s turds he was having to talk about, it was Gilbert and George’s shit pictures. “Women,” Emin explained carefully as she unveiled her masturbation work, “want to keep coming and keep coming and keep coming.” There was no reaction shot.
But the sense of British art's overarching story was barely there. War gave us Modernism. Peace gave us Pop Art. Seven Ages of Britain gave us half a paragraph on one, half a sentence on the other. The Blitz was seen through the sketches of Henry Moore, the creation of the NHS through the drawings of Barbara Hepworth. No sign of the sculptures they are actually known for.
Indeed, in service to the idea that this was the people’s century, there was a lot on stuff that didn’t, in even the most generous definition, belong in the story of Britain’s art. Dimbleby lovingly fondled an old wireless set. The Austin 7, he advised, was “a work of art in its own right”. And he should know. He used to drive one, and there he was in one of those old clips the BBC keeps on tap for these occasions, behind the wheel as a young pup, the even younger Dimbers Minor in the seat beside. On the more challenging hills, Dimbers Major recalled, the only way up was by reversing. Seven Ages of Britain ended its own journey by reversing uphill.
Dimbleby has made quite a few of these series now, and no doubt there’ll be another soon enough. He should probably go back to the distant past where he belongs. In front of Paul Nash’s The Menin Road, or Francis Bacon’s agonised response to the wartime atrocity, he doesn’t have the chops or possibly even the wiring to respond articulately and emotionally.
Maybe Kenneth Clark, his equal for poshness, would have struggled with the emetic end of the century too. Dimbers asked the questions like someone with a faint smell of aesthetic decay affronting his nostrils. And no wonder. If it wasn’t Anish Kapoor’s turds he was having to talk about, it was Gilbert and George’s shit pictures. “Women,” Emin explained carefully as she unveiled her masturbation work, “want to keep coming and keep coming and keep coming.” There was no reaction shot.
- Watch The Seven Ages of Britain on BBC iPlayer
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