In pride of place in the art gallery that is our sitting-room is The Chinese Girl (or the Green Lady as it is sometimes called.) It was modelled on Lenka, the girl friend of the Russian painter Vladimir Tretchikoff who he met in a New York restaurant. It has been called the "The Mona Lisa of the British Working Class." Whenever the public school boys who produce Private Eye want to make fun out of the lower-orders they can be relied on to show a cartoon of a council house interior with The Chinese Girl painting in the background. It makes readers smile everytime.
While recuperating from his labours as a furnace bricklayer the old man enjoys sitting in his armchair with a box of Swan Vesta matches, cigarette papers and a roll-up of Old Holborne tobacco within easy reach. (If he has just returned from the Continent there will be a box of Dutch cigars and a bottle of brandy.) 'Monty' Porter was baffled by his fascination with art and asked him "what's it all about." The old man tells him it can send numinous shivers down the spine, smuggle secret tips from the past on how life should be led, and conjure up the sound of a guitar being played on a lonely hillside. "Above all - as Hegel said - 'art is the sensuous presentation of ideas.'" Then he brings everything down with a thud by turning towards me and saying: "Nip down the shop, son, and get a couple of ounces of Old Holborne tobacco and a box of matches."
The Chinese Girl is taking everything in - the laughter, the hopes, the arguments, the forebodings and apprehensions. She can sense that we are going through tricky times. The Chinese Girl never returns our gaze. Even surprise tactics (like creeping in to the sitting-room on all fours and firing off a lightening glance in her direction) never catch her off guard. Perhaps she is immersed in her own concerns and brooding about being called a Girl when anyone can see she is a grown-up woman. She could be thinking about the indignities that have been inflicted on Chinese civilisation by the onslaught of colonialism. Or maybe she has some inkling about what is going to befall us. 'Que sera sera!' - "the future not being ours to see" - is the popular song of the moment - and when it is played on the wireless her eyes almost seem to flicker.
Prints of The Chinese Girl painting first went on sale in 1952. The old man was one of the first people in Bath to buy one. This fact does not impress everyone. Once I was looking through the window of the art shop in Green Street which has a copy of The Chinese Girl is on display. Two well-heeled characters then came and stood behind me. They stared at the painting with great intensity for a few minutes and then started laughing. One of them chortled: "The painting before us represents the very essence of plebeian taste!"