Public Wealth or Public Health?
This very nearly turned into a blog about elitism in access to fine art.
Recently, one of us and a friend (in the UK for just a week), set out on a journey to see the Van Gogh exhibition at London’s National Gallery. Booked out for the rest of the run, one of us had signed up to become a member of the National Gallery to enable ticketless access for two.
Image (right) by Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35481651
The NG had recently been heavily criticised for poor queue management so we approached the famous portico with some trepidation but, thankfully, the lines of people seemed benign and well regulated. Spotting a queue-free entry door on the right-hand side, we approached with caution, to be confronted by a grim-faced myrmidon. I cautiously raised my right hand in which was clutched my phone, displaying the QR code of my digital membership card. Mr Grim-Face melted instantly and ushered us into the bag search area like honoured guests, which, in a way, we were, thanks to spending twice the ticket price on membership.
And so the morning continued. Staff couldn’t have been more, well, ingratiating. Is that too damning a word? We were certainly made to feel special simply because we had paid more money to join a sort of London Club. But, as usual, we digress. The exhibition was splendid and ‘club’ membership does, of course, continue to offer benefits for the rest of the year.
There is so much for the landscape lover to enjoy in Van Gogh, and to see the terroir authentique of Provence through the eyes of an anxiety-ridden Dutchman is, yes, a glorious experience. Here is the embodiment of Provence - light and agriculture, fields and treescapes, skies and mountains. Here is the essence of the people who lived there, their architecture, their parks and their lives.
Ten days after our visit to the National Gallery one of us was to be involved in a symposium on the Landscapes of Public Health and was, therefore, particularly interested in the pictures created by Van Gogh during his time in the asylum in Saint-Rémy (some 15 miles to the east of his Provençal home in Arles). If Van Gogh could have been a symposium speaker, he would have been in excellent company.
Saint-Rémy Asylum Garden
What do we mean by public health? The UK’s Faculty of Public Health defines it as ‘the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through the organised efforts of society’ (https://www.fph.org.uk/what-is-public-health/). A quick bit of Terroir brainstorming came up with topics such as plague/Covid, drinking water and fluoride, sewage infrastructure and river pollution, open spaces and mountains.
The FOLAR symposium (The Friends of the Landscape Archive at Reading, (https://www.folar.uk/) presented a wonderfully eclectic and informative view of public health landscapes. The ‘Bermondsey Experiment’ undertaken in the early decades of the 20th century, took us, metaphorically, to a damp, unsanitary and unhealthy part of London’s south bank slums, where men sought work in the docks or on the railways, the single women worked in canning factories and the married women in jam factories. The mortality rate was sky high, the air filthy from coal smoke, income extremely insecure, and sanitation we leave to your imagination.
Ada and Alfred Salter (social reformer and medical doctor respectively) moved into this landscape to fight for, and instigate, much needed public health improvements. Their holistic approach included an open air school for tubercular children (these days we call them Forest Schools), improvements to the sewage system, extensive tree planting and other ‘beautification’ works, provision of parks and open spaces, community facilities and activities (sports, chess, music) and much more. Their dedication to improving immune systems and extending life expectancy in the Bermondsey community was extraordinary and effective, despite the ultimate tragedy of losing their own daughter to scarlet fever at the age of 8. Thank you to speaker Robert Holden.
Images above: Alfred and Ada Salter and the cat, with the view from modern Bermondsey, looking west
We are probably all aware to some extent of the role of parks and open spaces for mental and physical health thanks to the Covid Pandemic, but speaker Paul Rabbitts illustrated the low political profile which parks still hold in delivery of public health gains. The 1875 Public Health Act recognized the importance of public open space to the health of urban communities, and many supportive organisations followed (eg The National Playing Fields Association and the Public Gardens Association). But the role of parks in the delivery of Public Health is, in the opinion of Terroir, still woefully underplayed.
A talk on the landscapes associated with 19th century ‘lunatic asylums’ (including their gardens, parkland & farms) brings us nicely back to Van Gogh and the time he spent in the Asylum at Saint-Rémy. The exhibition at the National Gallery is subtitled ‘Poets and Lovers’ but to Terroir, the St Remy paintings speak more of survival, of making the best of things, of re-evaluating his environment and his ability to represent it in paint on canvas.
His life had a tragic ending – from mental health issues, rather than from the virulent strain of scarlet fever which carried off Joyce Salter - but his journey through life has bequeathed to us a vigorous bequest of uplifting, inspiring and bouyant landscapes.
Despite the cost of the therapy(!), we came away feeling uplifted, joyous and in excellent mental health.