It was wet on the night of the opening of the new Turner galleries. The fireworks celebrating the occasion made the clouds of misty rain substantial. Reflections in the windows of the dismal wall of offices which faces the Tate across the Thames mixed with car lights and street lamps. A crowd from the party inside gathered on the steps under umbrellas. The bigger starbursts were applauded, much as the flames bursting through the roof of the Lords' chamber were applauded by the crowd watching the burning of the Houses of Parliament in 1834. The fireworks roused the sense of the sublime from the distant thicket in the 20th-century mind to which it has retreated.

LRB 4 June 1987 | PDF Download