Sea Stars (and Stripes):Sean Scully at the National Gallery.

"I look at my paintings for a very long time before letting them out of my studio. I like to get on the treadmill and look around at all of my paintings while I exercise. I try to stare them down to make them reveal their weaknesses. If they reveal weaknesses they get repainted" - Sean Scully.

Sean Scully, according to a recent documentary I saw, is Britain and Ireland's (he was born in Dublin but grew up in London) most under appreciated artist. I wasn't that familiar with him but the gist of this show was that he was a behemoth who dominated the international art scene, a colossus who could not put a foot wrong, a genius of our time.

I was half-expecting Vasari to return to Earth to pen another chapter of his hagiographic Lives of the Artists so high was the praise dished out to Scully. Of course, it made me take against him. As did Scully's pugilistic manner, just read that opening quote again and see how he despises weakness. He almost sounds like Donald Trump, a Donald Trump who can spell and put sentences together admittedly but Donald Trump nevertheless.

I look at my paintings for a very long time before letting them out of my studio. I like to get on the treadmill and look around at all of my paintings while I exercise. I try to stare them down to make them reveal their weaknesses. If they reveal weaknesses, they get repainted
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Sean Scully - Robe Blue Blue Durrow (2018) 

It's not a comparison I'd imagine Scully would care for. Though to take him at his word he doesn't care what anybody thinks of him. Scully is either blessed with Nicklas Bendtner levels of confidence or he pretends that he has. But just as Nicklas Bendtner turned out not to be the best footballer in the whole world after all, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that, just maybe, there are better artists than Sean Scully out there.

Not that there's anything unpleasant about his large (of course they're large) blobs of squares and stripes hanging from the gallery walls like so many experimental Battenberg cakes. The colours are marvellous, he's clearly put a lot of thought into it, and they're impressive sights but compared to the great American abstract expressionists that have so clearly inspired him they're a day late (more like half a century) and a dollar short.

The National Gallery's SEA STAR is a free collection of Scully's work from the last couple of years spread over three rooms and because of Scully's bizarrely immense pulling power he's got the powers to be at the National to include JMW Turner's 1830 The Evening Star in the exhibition. Predictably, it's the best thing there. By some margin.

Joseph Mallord William Turner - The Evening Star (about 1830)

There's no shame in that. Turner is probably the greatest British artist that ever lived. More talented painters than Sean Scully will struggle in comparison. I suppose the thing about Scully is that he clearly sees himself as Turner's equal. Van Gogh's too. Vincent's chair hasn't left the main galleries but, on Scully's 'orders' I popped up to have a look and take a snap of it.

Scully's Arles Abend Vincent (there's a clue in the title) is intended as a response to the 1888 painting that Scully would visit, aged nineteen, and stare at on a daily basis when it was housed in the Tate on Millbank. There's quite a lot of reminiscing in SEA STAR. Scully became an American citizen , settling in New York, in the seventies and seems to have treated this show as a chance to take a trip down memory lane.

Nothing wrong with that. There's a panel that recounts an apparently rare pleasurable day out with his father in Sheerness and there's another devoted to reminiscences about nearby Trafalgar Square. He waxes lyrical about the red buses outside Charing Cross station, the trains down to Sydenham where he grew up, feeding the pigeons, and making an annual family visit at Christmas to see the giant spruce presented to the UK from the grateful Norwegians for helping them out in World War 2.

He doesn't stop there. There's anecdotes about rallies and protests against Apartheid and the Vietnam War, listening to Bertrand Russell speak, and harassing the cops. Most breathtakingly of all, but seemingly not atypical, Scully talks about the statue of the heroic Horatio Nelson and how he now, with his stripey paintings, sees Nelson and himself as 'allies'!

Sean Scully - Arles Abend Vincent (2013)

Sean Scully - Arles Abend Vincent (2013)

Sean Scully - Arles Abend Vincent (2013)

Turner, Van Gogh, and now Nelson. Steady on there fella! Confidence in your own ability is one thing but you could be making a rod for your own back. Except, of course, he isn't. He's a hugely successful, very rich, and much loved artist. Maybe sheer force of personality does eventually find a way. If you insist loudly enough you're a genius, eventually people will agree.

It's not that Scully isn't talented. He is. I just don't think he's as talented as he, and many others, think he is. Maybe I should meditate in front of the works a la Rothko but that's not really going to work in such a busy space. So I look at them briefly, I think they're pretty, and I move on. Maybe it's me but I'm just not getting it. Maybe I'll read this back in a year or two and wonder how I could have been so blind. Who knows? I can only tell you what I'm getting from it now and, sadly, it's not much.

Sean Scully - Landline Pool (2018)

Sean Scully - Landline Star (2017)

"A window is a promise like a doorway" says Scully, "a facade is not totally relentless because of the window and the door. That's what humanises the wall" he adds, only serving to obfuscate things further. I enjoyed the Human series the most out of all the triptychs and set pieces that made up SEA STAR. I liked the slightly smaller inset rectangles that juxtaposed, often quite garishly, with the larger rectangles they were set against. I thought they were pretty. I didn't think they were life changing.

Sean Scully - Human 3 (2018)

Sean Scully - Human 3 (2018)

Sean Scully - Human 3 (2018)

Sean Scully - Human 3 (2018)

Scully's had five exhibitions in China since 2014, an information board on the wall boasts, and has become fascinated with the city's ancient culture. Who wouldn't? It's fascinating stuff. We learn that in China black corresponds to water and is regarded as a heavenly colour, that yellow symbolises earth, and that red represents good fortune - as does the number 8 (which also symbolises infinity). 

Which is interesting stuff but Hilma af Klint was doing this colour coding stuff about a century back and her paintings were more interesting than Scully's. Scully also riffs on fabrics and cloths he's seen in souks in Morocco (in his Robe series of paintings) but, again, this seems to be another example of Sean Scully going somewhere, seeing something, and then telling us how good it is. Even though we may already know. It dawns on me that Sean Scully's work is mansplaining converted into art and, eventually, converted into cold hard cash. There's money in telling people what they already know. You ask a management consultant.

Sean Scully - Landline China 8 (2018)

Sean Scully - Robe Magdalena (2017)

Sean Scully - Arles Abend Deep (2017)

Sean Scully - Arles Abend Deep (2017)

Sean Scully - Arles Abend Deep (2017)

It seems Sean Scully's got enough belief in both himself and his abilities not to worry what some no mark like me thinks of his work (which is just as well as he looks a bit handy, even at 73) but for the record I was underwhelmed. You may have worked that out by now.

Vincent van Gogh - Van Gogh's Chair (1888)