I went to the Hatton Gallery, hoping to see the paintings I’d skipped over on my previous visit when I had been captured by Kurt Schwitters’ Merz Barn Wall. Unfortunately, the gallery was taken over by the graduate art show (very shallow of me to think that, I know) so I returned to the wall to see if I felt the same way about it.

Yes – but without that sense of astonishment I had the first time. The lines and shapes and proportions seem just right somehow. The clean curves offset by the texture of the plaster “scales”. The little areas of colour. I knew it was unfinished, but I didn’t realise- until I read further – that this is not quite what Schwitters created. There were other elements, like a column, but this (restored) is all that remains.

I can feel a visit to Ambleside coming on.