Art greed

I took the train up to London to look at some art. Probably too much at once.

Egon Schiele "The Radical Nude" exhibition at The Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House, then Ansel Kiefer retrospective at the RA.

Schiele's nudes are not to everyone's taste; male and female, anorexic and sometimes ill, the nudes are never set in context - they are unsupported and isolated, many are semi-pornographic too wearing only shoes and stockings or with dresses hitched up above the waist, sometimes with only the lips and nipples coloured. What they do show is a very sculptural fascination with the shapes, angles and anatomy of the human body and a visceral disregard for convention. Schiele died in the 'flu epidemic of 1918 three days after his wife. He was only 28.

Anselm Kiefer is held up by critics as a monumental modern European artist. His pictures certainly are often huge and he seems to approach art in a very cerebral way. There is lots of religious symbolism, poetry, German guilt/angst about the Nazis and the fate of the Jews under Hitler. The paint in some pictures is incredibly thick, layered on in trowel-loads, composed of many different colours but ultimately dominated by greys. We were told these works are enormously important. However, I can't really like them. I think I dislike them because the are so laboured at. Deft is not a word I would apply to him. To me all great artists must be deft.

This picture hangs in the lobby at The Royal Academy.