Sunday

This is The Lustre Bowl With Green Peas by Sir William Nicholson, painted in 1911.

Startling fact: in 1922 Nicholson illustrated The Velveteen Rabbit, the devastating children’s classic by Margery Williams, from which I now feel compelled to quote:

‘Real isn't how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’

’Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.

’Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.’

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There is no symbolism in this painting. The bowl is just a bowl. The peas are just peas. Both have been chosen for their aesthetic appeal rather than to signify anything more profound. As Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

The predecessor of this particular painting was painted for a dare. It is called The Lustre Bowl and exists because the publisher William Heinemann bet Nicholson that he could not faithfully reproduce that level of gleam.

These is obviously tremendous beauty in this painting, but there is sensuality too - you want to touch that bowl, to hold it in your hands. You might pod those peas and pop some in your mouth. The black background isn’t just flat black, but somehow velvety. The white cotton tablecloth is modest. It slightly reminds me of an altar cloth.

The composition could not be more simple, and yet it’s unforgettable. I love how the lustre on the bowl looks so rich and luxurious, but the fresh green peas - reflected in the bowl - are humble. This is not an extravagant still life in the Dutch manner, with cornucopias of exotic fruits or piles of lobsters on damask tablecloths, but it is no less dazzling. Silver lustre is earthenware covered with a platinum-lustre glaze, and was popular in the 19th century – cheaper than actual silver, plus it didn’t tarnish. Nicholson loved and collected pottery, and often painted it. He was brilliant at painting light reflecting off (mostly) convex surfaces - here is another extraordinary example, and here are some more.

The son of an industrialist and onetime Tory member of parliament, Nicholson always painted but initially worked as a printmaker, making woodcuts with his brother-in-law. They called themselves the Beggarstaffs and printed, among other things, theatre posters, successfully enough to be asked to make a series of books by Heinemann. In 1899 Nicholson made a print of a short, bulky Queen Victoria (whose husband had died in 1861 and who wore mourning for the rest of her life). She is walking alone with her little dog. The print conveyed forbearance, old age and loneliness and became enormously popular with the public - if you are British and for whatever reason need to summon up an image of Victoria, that print probably swims up from the depths of your consciousness.

As well as being a painter, mostly of society portraits because he needed the money - they’re what got him knighted in 1936 - Nicholson at various points in his life taught (Winston Churchill was an appreciative pupil), designed and illustrated books, designed theatre sets and designed stained glass. As well as all this, he painted still lives, portraits and landscapes. His versatility - he could clearly turn his hand to most things - meant that he was not taken especially seriously as painter until twenty years ago. People like their artists tortured and suffering, which he was not, though I always especially admire people who make a difficult thing look easy.

His legacy was re-evaluated when the Royal Academy in London put on an exhibition of his work in 2004. I went to it and loved it immediately. I still have the postcard I bought of The Lustre Bowl with Green Peas in my study.

Before this retrospective, he was better known for being the father of Ben Nicholson, 1894-1982.

PS at about 2pm: I was just flicking through The Observer and there in the Review section is a giant photo of William Nicholson’s The Silver Casket and Red Leather Box, which is part of a marvellous-sounding exhibition of British still lifes that’s on at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, West Sussex, until October 20. Here’s the very good piece that goes with the picture. What a weird coincidence. Also I feel an expedition coming on. (Who is it that says there aren’t coincidences and that the whole world is like that all the time, except that sometimes there’s a blip/rip so we get a tiny glimpse of it and all go ‘what an amazing coincidence,’ when in fact it is just how things actually are? Total mental blank and can’t google because I need to go and eat cheese).

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