Line Of Beauty: Barry McGlashan

Talk about a kid in a sweet shop! What evident fun Barry McGlashan has had recreating and imagining the studios of great artists. Let loose on the entire history of art, free to pop into any studio he wants, buzzing between geniuses and epochs like a bee collecting pollen, McGlashan paints pictures that throb with the Hello! Magazine pleasure of sneaking into people’s houses and having a good gawp.

Look, there’s Raphael with his mistress, La Fornerina, sitting on his knee while he paints her portrait! Look, there’s Leonardo at work on the Mona Lisa! And isn’t that the table around which Jesus and the Apostles sat in the Last Supper? Look, it’s Toulouse Lautrec watching La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge! Look, it’s Picasso’s studio in Cannes! Look, it’s Rubens! Of course, this spectacular access to the inner sanctums of great artists is entirely fictitious. Enormous skill, excellent comic timing, and layer upon layer of intricate detail have gone into fashioning these far-fetched interiors.

Part of what McGlashan is doing is pure fan worship. He doesn’t pop into the studios of any old artist. He goes for the biggies – Leonardo, Raphael, Rubens, Picasso. When Barry peeps through a keyhole he peeps into a career that is already rich with meaning and achievement.