if it’s Wednesday this must be London

At the Royal Academy for the Vilhelm Hammershøi exhibiton: four rooms of this work which itself features doorways leading to other doorways. The work, dating from the 1880s to 1915-6, shows a remarkable consistency over a period of turmoil in the visual arts. There’s almost no change of palette and the sparseness of the images – barely furnished rooms with the occasional figure of a woman (more often than not seen from behind) or landscapes completely lacking in picturesque features – becomes, if anything, slightly more pronounced over these years.

Then to the Lamb for this month’s Blue Bus reading at which, coincidentally, Anthony Rudolf read a piece involving the Danish artist. The other featured readers were Valeria Melchioretto (shown here) and Wendy Saloman. Through the upstairs windows of the pub the offices of the hospital were lit by greenish-yellow light that would have been a vulgar aberration if Hammershøi had painted it.