Alain Chapel

It is a problem to decide in what spirit we should go to a three-star restaurant. Is such an occasion a pilgrimage to a shrine of gastronomy, to be undertaken with solemnity and reverence? Is it a rare opportunity for a blow-out, an abandonment to pleasure and self-indulgence? Or is it an everyday event, writ a little larger?

There are those in this gallery who make no demands upon us, being content to give pleasure and those who, to a greater or lesser degree, seem to ask that we should show a respect due to their art.