Home again

We’re back from our few days in Liverpool.

We stayed at the Hilton, largely because of its convenient location, opposite the Albert dock (where the Tate is) & next to the Liverpool One shopping centre with all its eateries. Our conclusion is never again. This hotel is clearly aimed at a younger clientele. The noise in the bar & restaurant was enormous. Shouting across the dining table is not my idea of a romantic tête-à-tête, though the scallop starters were sensational. Nor did we appreciate the loud-mouthed revellers returning to their beds at 2-4am shouting down the corridors. Even the empty bottles being emptied into skips at 5am were more than enough for us, even though we were on the third floor. We will not be returning there.

However, the main point of going to Liverpool was to see the Matisse exhibition. The highlight was “The Snail”, though both of us were more interested in a short film showing Matisse working on the vestments for the Chapelle du Rosaire which we saw at Vence. It had never occurred to us how he placed & fixed the cut-out shapes on the base fabric.

What really made the visit worthwhile was on one of the higher floors. We turned a corner to be struck by one of Barbara Hepworth’s “Single Form (Eikon)”.There was something about this lone monolith that drew us – the  mottled blue-green colour, the sense of age & timelessness, the sensuality of the curves. She seems to always steal the show at the Tate as far as we are concerned. She did last time we visited the Tate Liverpool, several years ago when we went primarily to see the Rothko exhibition.

The other work that struck me was a painting by Paul Nash,“Harbour& Room”. On either side of the picture is the interior of a room with  regency striped wallpaper. The ceiling stretches across the top. In the centre is the prow of a ship as it makes its way across choppy waters to the dock. In the foreground is the dock buildings around around a quieter, though still rough, water. At first it struck me as an odd picture. From the blurb on the wall next to the painting I gather it was inspired by the view in a mirror in his bedroom. The more I looked the more seasick I ended up feeling as I went up and down on that choppy water. I started to notice, too that some aspects of the picture didn’t seem quite right. The top of the mirror leant forward rather than being flat on the wall. The reflected windows of the dock buildings. A strange but curiously powerful painting. In the end I had to turn away before the nausea grew too much.