The incident emphasizes once more that beauty is something to be found, rather than passively encountered, that it requires us to pick up on certain details, to identify the whiteness of a cotton dress, the reflection of the sea on the hull of a yacht or the contrast between the colour of a jockey’s coat and his face. It also emphasizes how vulnerable we are to depression when the Elstirs of the world choose not to go on holiday and the pre-prepared images run out, when our knowledge of art does not stretch any later than Carpaccio [1450–1525] and Veronese [1528–1588] and we see a
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