The Monocle Minute

The first picture that you see as you walk into Goya to Impressionism, the new exhibition at London’s ever-excellent Courtauld Gallery, is a horror show. Odd, then, that it’s just an image of some raw fish. “Still Life with Three Salmon Steaks” by Francisco de Goya is the above-the-fireplace size of an average landscape or still life and could have been chockful of detail, both actual and metaphorical. You know the kind of thing: a pineapple to proudly denote exotic exploration; a browning pear as a soft-fruit memento mori; a tricksy shrew nibbling away as a warning to keep your larder – or nation state – safe. But it isn’t chockful of that sort of detail. These salmon steaks are soft, pink, fleshy and, recently cut from the fish, oozing blood. The painting is tender and Goya-sublime but the picture is plain, dark, stark and full of suggestion. It’s some fish. But look again and it’s an image from a warzone, actual and metaphorical.

At the time of painting (1808 to 1812), the Napoleonic Wars were raging, including the Peninsular War, fought in Iberia by Spain, Portugal and Britain against France. Spain was occupied and Goya, despite being the great court painter, had a French officer billeted in his house in Madrid. Imagine the mealtimes. Beneath the civilities likely lay raw hostilities. While Goya was painting this subtly stark still life (one of a small series), he was also making his famous Disasters of War prints in secret. This latter work, a politically charged magnum opus of savagery, was not published until 1863, 35 years after Goya’s death.

What is being made in secret in Russia and Ukraine? In Palestine and Israel? Is there paper and ink enough in Syria or Sudan to plumb the depths? These wars have been under-reported, under-photographed, only halfway understood. There has been no black-and-white constancy, no Tim Hetheringtons nor Don McCullins anointed among the press blackouts enforced by shifty officials and reinforced by stay-at-home media. Who at the recent Munich Security Conference was arrested by an image? There has been less or nothing at all of the actual or metaphorical to catch the eye and guide the conscience. Yet these conflicts daily contain myriad disasters of war.

This phenomenal show at the Courtauld is part of the Oskar Reinhart Collection, normally at home at Am Römerholz, a stately house in Winterthur, just outside Zürich, and one of the world’s best small museums. The exhibition gets much cheerier with its Toulouse-Lautrecs and Renoirs but its opening picture will stay with you. That blood, like the eyes of a haunted portrait, is present when you close your own. Look twice, three times, look again. Now, as then, the truth is what’s made in secret; in what they’ve left out.

Robert Bound presents‘Monocle on Culture’onMonocle Radio. For more opinion, analysis and insight,subscribeto Monocle today.

Salomé Zourabichvili has become a figure of defiance in Georgia, where there have been mass protests against the ruling, and increasingly authoritarian, Georgian Dream party. Zourabichvili, who was elected to the ceremonial role of president in 2018, took a stand after the pro-Russian government claimed victory in elections in October – a vote that she believes to be “illegitimate”. In December, Georgian Dream installed former footballer Mikheil Kavelashvili as president but Zourabichvili has refused to leave the presidential residence and has the support of many of her compatriots, who want to see their country align itself with Europe. Monocle Radio’s Andrew Mueller sat down with Zourabichvili at the Munich Security Conference to find out more.

The Munich Security Conference is a key date for dignitaries from around the world but isn’t leaving Georgia a bit risky for you at the moment?
I don’t know – and I’m not calculating the risks like that. There are risks today in Georgia for everyone, probably including me, but nobody’s stopping because of those risks. The people protesting on the streets are taking much greater risks. This is not a normal political crisis in Georgia.

Is Georgia heading towards some sort of political showdown? Situations where two people say they’re president tend not to end well…
No. There is a standoff – but not a showdown – between a society that doesn’t want to go back to Russian domination and what is basically a one-man ruling party. It’s not going to turn into a showdown because the population is very conscious of our specific geopolitical situation. We have Russian troops in two occupied territories 40km from the capital, Tbilisi. So that’s why this movement [in opposition to Georgian Dream] is extremely peaceful.

Without the kind of support that Georgia might have expected from the US and EU in the past, can Georgia’s people do this alone?
Nobody in Georgia believes that anybody else will do it for them. What they need is moral support and attention. That’s what I’m here to explain – that we are an important place, even if it doesn’t look like that today. Georgia’s situation is existential. Fortunately, the reason that Georgia is here today is that people are willing to fight to the end.

Between the heated speeches at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof and the loud public demonstrations on the streets, there was little room for discretion. Monocle was at the Munich Security Conference with its ears to the ground, as well as at its debriefs at nearby bars and parties. Here are a few thought-provoking comments that we overheard.

“Cyber warfare is tangential. It’s lurking in the shadows but it’s not the main stage”
A technology expert who was clearly hoping for a better billing

“This is 11 o’clock for Europe. It’s not midnight but it’s 11 o’clock”
A US businessman to a group of bewildered Germans

“It’s interesting that [the US vice-president, JD Vance] thinks that he can lecture us about democracy”
A European general

For more insights and interviews from the Munich Security Conference, tune in to‘The Foreign Desk’special on Monocle Radio this Saturday. ‘The Foreign Desk’ is also available onApple PodcastsandSpotify. Subscribe for the latest episodes every Saturday.

The Greek island of Santorini is still being rocked by thousands of earthquakes, weeks after the first of the recent tremors in January. Schools are closed and some 10,000 people have fled to more stable ground. But for those who have remained, the news cycle and continuous state of emergency have become exhausting. “It hasn’t been a natural disaster; it has been a PR disaster,” says hotelier Markos Chaidemenos, whose brand, Canaves Collection, operates three hotels on the island.

“There are still some tourists but they have the whole island to themselves.” The most powerful seismic activity was a 5.3-magnitude earthquake on 10 February. There hasn’t been any extensive damage and cafés and restaurants are starting to reopen. According to Chaidemenos, the picture is far more dramatic from the outside. “The media has made this situation much worse than it really is,” he adds.

When Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia inaugurated Addis Ababa’s Africa Hall in 1961, it hit the sweet spot between symbolism, functionality and form. For Monocle’s February issue, we explored how Brisbane-based firm Architectus Conrad Gargett renovated the HQ of the United Nations’ Economic Commission for Africa, subtly updating it for the 21st century. Despite it being the Australian firm’s first commission in Africa, the UN – being an equal-opportunity employer – established that it was best equipped for the job. Why? Historical sensitivity. The building’s entire façade was reglazed, 13 million tiles were fabricated using the original ceramics and a 150 sq m stained-glass triptych was restored by the original maker’s grandson. Pick up a copy to read more.

Benjamin Moser joins Georgina Godwin to talk about his journey from growing up in Texas and writing his first book, Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector, to winning a Pulitzer Prize for Sontag: Her Life and Work. Moser also reflects on culture, class, writing and hints at his next project, a political history of Jews who oppose Zionism.