Colcam

In a week in which we have seen the predictable annual scorn and ridicule over the Turner Prize, awarded this year to Simon Starling for his conceptual work, Shedboatshed, a painting by Titian, unfinished when the artist died in 1576, went to auction at Christies.

Nobody wanted it. Portrait of a Lady and her Daughter, expected to fetch between five and eight million pounds, failed to make its reserve price.




Beautifully painted, no doubt, this painting says....... yawn....... not a lot. It's a painting of a wifey and her brat who, if the camera had been invented, would have been photographed, saving everybody a lot of time and trouble. It is a record, no doubt flatteringly enhanced to cover up the plooks on their faces, of what two people looked like. It has no meaning beyond that, and while technically excellent, says nothing and makes no statement. Old masters churned out such portraits by the ton to earn a buck.

Unlike Shedboatshed which, love it or hate it, understand it or not, is thought-provoking, creative and original. Anybody else made a shedboatshed, anybody else even had the idea, or even used the word shedboatshed?

No. And at least it wasn't second hand, and it was finished, unlike Titian's five million quid snapshot - and you know how boring it is looking at other peoples family photos.