Abstract

Peacock was one of four artists represented by The Portal Gallery, London who were invited by the Loring Gallery to take part in an exhibition to coincide with the summer season of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The works were intended to be in sympathy with the programme that the orchestra typically presents and to be accessible to the audience. The Boston Symphony is an established classical orchestra whose performances include work from a range of established classical and modernist composers presented in a traditional formal setting. Peacock’s work was included as his experimental paintings were considered highly representative of a kind of introspective narrative painting, which was regarded as essentially British and presented a uniquely individual concept for the subject. He produced several new paintings and five were selected by the gallery to be included in the exhibition, all oil paint on canvas or board. The works Twangldangdoodle, The Keys to Rome, The Rope that Binds and The Conductor’s Jacket, focus on the musicians themselves and their relationships both actual and imaginary with the process of playing instruments and reading music, and the subjugation of their personalities and performance to the score as translated by the conductor. This subjugation was visually manifest in the conformity of their ‘uniform’, a kind of timeless evening suit and in the way their performance is largely devoid of the opportunity for improvisation or innovation. Peacock used the bourgeoisie conformity of the manners and appearance of the characters and contrasted it with a set of whimsical leitmotifs alluding to different parallel fantasies and dreams.