When Less is More...

I was fascinated to learn recently that during World War Two all the paintings from The National Gallery were stored in the Manod Quarry at Blaenau Ffestiniog in Wales.  The Gallery’s curator had suggested to Churchill that maybe they should be shipped to Canada for safety, but he is reported to have replied: ‘hide them in caves and cellars, not one picture shall leave this island’!

This meant the huge gallery on one side of Trafalgar Square was now empty.  To fill that ‘void’ Myra Hess, along with other musicians, regularly put on free lunch time concerts for Londoners to keep their spirits up.  Those free recitals still exist today, and I regularly attend them; now held next door at the church of St Martin in The Fields.

During the Blitz the National Gallery was hit nine times and by the end not one pane of glass survived in its roof.  However, by 1942 it was deemed safe enough for just one painting a month to be taken out of the Manod Quarry, driven up to London, and put on solitary display.  Just one painting!  Then it would return to Wales at the end of the month and another take its place.  Thousands queued to look at the beauty of just one painting. 

Less became more!  The appreciation of these war time Londoners of one painting was totally disproportionate to pre and post war reaction when so much more was, and is, on offer. 

During these days when so much has been temporarily withdrawn from the routine of our daily life, an hour’s walk in the fresh hour, a phone call or WhatsApp message, even the repeat of a much loved programme on TV can bring us immense pleasure.

We are, perhaps, re-calibrating life and not unlike those of previous generations who went through their own time of crisis, we too are learning that sometimes Less is More as we thank God and each other for the little things that still make life a joy.