‘My Wife, My Horse and Myself’ - Alfred Munnings

‘The most radical revolutionary will become conservative the day after the revolution.’
Hannah Arendt, Philosopher and Political Theorist

I confess I’m partial to the art of Alfred Munnings.

In the first half of the twentieth century Munnings painted East Anglian life in bold, bright colours: race meetings, horse fairs and hunting; farm hands, gentry and gypsies. Mostly he just painted horses, for whom he seemed to have a greater affection than he had for people. He titled one painting ‘My Wife, My Horse and Myself’ and the horse takes centre stage.

To modern eyes Munnings’ paintings are not particularly challenging or thought provoking. But in his youth he was part of the progressive art colony based on the south coast of Cornwall, the Newlyn School, and he served as a war artist during the First World War. His work is honest, open and true. It is rooted in the English countryside and English painting tradition. It is in its own way rather beautiful.

‘Every hero becomes a bore at last.’
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essayist

Sadly Munnings’ reputation in the art world is tarnished. As he grew older he developed a passionate dislike of modernism. In his late sixties he served as President of the Royal Academy of Art and, in a speech broadcast live on the BBC in 1949, he drunkenly accused his fellow painters of ‘shilly shallying in this so called modern art.’ He suggested that Cezanne, Matisse and Henry Moore had corrupted art, and he joked that he’d like to join Churchill in kicking Picasso up the arse.

’The Start at Newmarket’ - Alfred Munnings

‘A great scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die.’
Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning Physicist

I was prompted to think about Munnings by a piece I read in The Times (Rhys Blakely, 17 September 2019). A recent study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tracked the careers of 13,000 elite scientists, looking at their funding, published papers and citations. The research suggests that ‘superstar scientists,’ once they have achieved a position of authority, tend to suppress new ideas from other quarters. After their deaths their field of study is often invigorated by younger rivals, who suddenly publish research at a faster rate, and by scientists migrating from other adjacent subject areas.

‘Our results suggest that, once in control of the commanding heights of their fields, star scientists tend to hold on to their exalted position – and to the power that comes with it – a bit too long.’
Pierre Azoulay, MIT

This conclusion may resonate with people working in business today. The senior ranks of industry are quite often filled with individuals who in their youthful prime were high-achieving radicals. However, with the passing of the years and the accrual of status, recognition and rewards, these same people can become increasingly conservative, set on defending their turf from new people and new ideas. They can’t help regarding the world through the prism of their own talents and beliefs. In time most revolutionaries become reactionaries.

Speaking from experience, as you get older you can feel marginalised. The world seems to be reinventing itself around the needs and tastes of new generations. It’s easy to resent change. And conservatism creeps over you like a comfortable blanket. We all occasionally suffer Luddite leanings.

‘All sorts of allowances are made for the illusions of youth; and none, or almost none, for the disenchantments of age.’
Robert Louis Stevenson, Writer

I’m not sure it’s wise to ‘rage against the dying of the light.’ At least not in the reactionary way that Munnings did. We may not want to run at the future, but we certainly shouldn’t run away from it. The grumpy old man or woman is rarely attractive, seldom makes for an effective leader, and should probably avoid the sauce when speaking in public.

'Old man, take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you.
I need someone to love me
The whole day through.
Ah, one look in my eyes
And you can tell that's true.’

Neil Young, ‘Old Man'

No. 259

I was in Vienna last weekend and attended a performance by the Spanish Riding School.

In the stately setting of the eighteenth century Winter Riding School, teams of manicured but muscular Lipizzan stallions, guided by uniformed horsemen and women, execute a series of disciplined manoeuvers. To a musical accompaniment the horses walk, trot and canter in harmony. They leap, pirouette and stand proud on their hind legs. It’s an extraordinary sight and is justly described as ‘horse ballet.’

I subsequently watched a TV documentary (Lucy Worsley’s Reins of Power: The Art of Horse Dancing) that explained that horse ballet, or ‘manege’ as it was called, dates back to the sixteenth century. The elegant dance routines have a military origin. As warfare evolved from the heavy-armoured medieval battlefield, to the more fluid, firearms-dominated combat conditions of the seventeenth century, the cavalry had to become more agile. They had to move in and out of lines of infantry, to change direction at the drop of a hat.

Manege was a method for training horses in the physical and mental demands of this new form of fighting. In the first half of the seventeenth century manege became a hugely popular sport for aristocrats across Europe with the time and money to devote to it.

I was surprised to learn that the word ‘management’ has its origins in manege. I wonder, can we learn anything about modern management from the equine activity that inspired the term?

Well, first of all, manege combines agility with control; it has a sense of elegance and finesse, as well as power and determination; a lightness of touch as well as supreme discipline. These ingredients might make the recipe for a compelling management style.

Secondly, just as manege developed in response to the combat conditions of its day, so it passed out of fashion as military practice moved on. In the English Civil War the manege-trained Cavaliers were defeated by Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army. Clearly management styles must evolve as the context in which they operate changes.

Do we fully acknowledge that the management approaches of the industrial age will be increasingly inappropriate to the age of technology?

Are we nurturing management talent that reflects the commercial and cultural challenges of the future?

Do we need a new type of management that responds to this modern era of partnership, purpose and organisational change?

'First I'm gonna make it,
Then I'm gonna break it,
Till it falls apart.
Hating all the faking,
And shaking while I'm breaking
Your brittle heart.
Bring on the dancing horses
Wherever they may roam.’

Echo and the Bunnymen, 'Bring On the Dancing Horses’
(I Mcculloch / L Pattinson / P De Freitas / W Sergeant)

We’re Only Remembered for What We Have Done

The National Theatre’s production of War Horse has been in the West End for a couple of years now and it's just announced that the run will conclude in March 2016. It's a moving World War I story about the relationship between man and beast, and it has been brought to the stage with a magical deployment of puppetry.

War Horse also boasts an evocative folk sound track. One song, Only Remembered, is a contemporary arrangement of a nineteenth century Methodist hymn. In it the workers in the field consider whether future generations will remember them.

‘Shall we be missed though by others succeeded
Reaping the fields we in springtime have sown?
No. For the sowers may pass from the earth and its toiling.
We’re only remembered for what we have done.’

It’s a melancholy sentiment. In all likelihood the industry will forget each and every one of us as it moves on to address new challenges and opportunities. There’ll be no recollection of the artful salesmanship and articulate speeches; no memory of magnificent meetings, presentations and decks; no record of the hard luck stories and ‘also rans’, the brilliant idea that didn’t quite make it to production. All that endures is the work. The rest is noise. And ultimately our legacy is what we do, what we make, what we create.

‘Ye shall know them by their fruits’

No. 50

When Revolutionaries Become Reactionaries: Alfred Munnings and the Disenchantments of Age

‘Bring on the Dancing Horses’: What Can the Spanish Riding School Teach Us About Management?