Headlong Read Online Free Page B

instead of her. ‘He’s writing a book about the impact of nominalism on Netherlandish art in the fifteenth century.’
    Laura gazes at me, immensely impressed. ‘Where’s everyone’s glass?’ says Tony impatiently, holding out the decanter. But she’s not to be distracted. ‘The impact of …?’
    ‘Nominalism,’ I repeat, and even as I say the word the meaning seems to drain out of it. I make an effort to stop the leak, if only to reassure myself. ‘Nominalism’s the view that there are no universals.’
    I have her full attention. Nominalism is what she’s been waiting all these years to know about. There seems no choice but to give her a complete tutorial.
    ‘The view that the individuals making up a class do so merely because they have the same name, not because they share some common essence. That class membership’s established by particular resemblances between members. That things are what they are because that’s how we see them, because that’s what we decide they are. It’s essentially a rejection of scholasticism … Of Platonism. It’s historically important because it’s a step in Europe’s emergence from the mediaeval world. It originated with William of Occam. In the fourteenth century.’
    She releases the smoke she’s been raptly retaining. ‘Wow,’ she says. I’m not sure, though, that dawning adoration is quite what I read in her eyes. I hadn’t envisaged her unfulfilled longing for philosophical enlightenment taking us into technicalities quite so soon.
    ‘Don’t waste your breath,’ says Tony. ‘She doesn’t understand a word you’re saying.’
    ‘Of course I do,’ says Laura. ‘I’m fascinated. And it had a tremendous impact, did it? All this …’
    ‘Nominalism. Yes – it had a remarkably large impact, all over Europe. Including on Netherlandish art. Or so I believe.’ And am ceasing to believe moment by moment as I expound it and she gazes at me. ‘If you look at Rogier van der Weyden, for instance, or Hugo van der Goes, you see this tremendous concentration upon individual, ungener-alized objects, on things that offer themselves not as indications of abstract ideas, but as themselves, as nothing more nor less than what they are …’
    I’m not certain, from the expression on her face, that she’s heard of Hugo van der Goes. Perhaps not even of Rogier van der Weyden.
    ‘Or look at Jan van Eyck,’ I try. ‘The famous mirror. The lamp, the clogs … In the Arnolfini Double Portrait … In the National Gallery …’
    I’m not absolutely certain she’s heard of the National Gallery.
    ‘But he hadn’t got very far with the book’, pursues Kate, quite unnecessarily, ‘when he was slightly side-tracked by the Master of the Embroidered Foliage.’
    Laura looks first at Kate, and then at me.
    ‘Because Friedländer is so ridiculously dismissive of him,’ I insanely feel obliged to explain.
    Laura turns from me to Kate and back to me.
    ‘Max Friedländer,’ I have to tell her. ‘The great authority on all the early Netherlandish stuff.’
    ‘But then’, says Kate, ‘he decided Friedländer was right after all.’
    Laura turns back to Kate. ‘So nice, your husband taking up your line of work.’
    ‘Well …’ says Kate, glancing at me. This is all a verydelicate area. I move quickly to head Laura off.
    ‘Kate’s strictly concerned with the iconography of art,’ I explain.
    ‘Whereas Martin’s only interested in the iconology.’
    Laura’s head twists back and forth as she follows this rally, her eyebrows higher and higher.
    ‘She doesn’t think iconology’s a real discipline.’
    ‘He thinks mere iconography’s beneath him.’
    Laura glances at Tony, the way I glance at Kate, to see if he’s savouring the conversation to the full. But he’s gazing into his aperitif, lost in his own thoughts. ‘Are we ready to eat?’ he says.
    I wonder whether to attempt to explain to Laura the difference between iconography and iconology.