Lawrence of Arabia, Imperial War Museum, London
'The chief business of the nation,' said that wisest of commentators, HL Mencken, 'is the setting up of heroes… mainly bogus.'
If so, this has been a vintage period for celebrations of clayfooted idols, with 2005 marking the passing of 200 years since Nelson expired so ostentatiously at Trafalgar. Had he lived, naval regulations and the excessive sillinesses of his private life would surely have denied him not only column inches but enduring fame.
Also marked last year was the 70th anniversary of the death of that other ultimate ego, Lawrence of Arabia. A finely constructed and researched exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London, subtitled The Life, The Legend, seeks to explain his allure. The result is a collection of images, artefacts and memorabilia that sometimes borders on hagiography but is never less than fascinating.
Most of the relics of the life of TE Lawrence are here, from a lock of his baby hair to the purse carried by one of the boy cyclists involved in the road accident that caused Lawrence's death. From the National Archives at Kew comes the newly discovered map outlining proposals for the reconstruction of the Middle East at the end of the first world war.
His arguments, that there was no case 'for separating Sunni and Shia Arabs', and that, when it comes to strategy, 'better the Arabs do it tolerably than you do it perfectly… it is their war', have a curiously modern resonance.
The displays are chronological. The story of Lawrence and his four brothers, the illegitimate sons of an Anglo-Irish landowner and the family governess, are chronicled, as are his studies in history at Oxford. His progress from working archaeologist and photographer in Syria to military and intelligence activist in the Arab Revolt are seamless.
There is a wealth of detail, written and visual, to illustrate the volatility of these short years. The strange alliance of Sir Edmund Allenby, the conventional British general, and Lawrence, the unorthodox guerrilla fighter, adds poignancy to Lawrence's realisation that he had been used as an agent to deny the Arabs their promised reward.
I was disappointed by only one aspect of this section. There is too much sentiment and not enough sand. The images are too small. I longed for a large blow-up of one of Lawrence's own atmospheric photographs, like that of the approach to Wadi Rumm, to convey a spatial sense of the desert. As a result we become over-dependent on the images from the illustrated travelogues of the American journalist Lowell Thomas.
Originally billed as 'With Allenby in Palestine - under the direction of Dale Carnegie', Lawrence in Arabia was the supporting act. Almost immediately he became the superstar whose celluloid exploits filled Covent Garden and the Royal Albert Hall.
The event was promoted as 'a tale of wild adventure - colourful as the Arabian Nights, poetic as the Rubaiyat', a story of 'a human being endowed with God-given powers… another Robert Clive… another Gordon… another Cortez'.
Lawrence seems to have been both gratified and irritated by the fame. 'It isn't that I hate being known - but I can't afford it: nobody gets so victimised by well-meaning people as a poor celebrity, a tin can attached to a cat's tail.' He wished for a reputation as a scholar and thinker.
His major work, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, with its portentous title and style, remains in print. But how many readers have got beyond the first dedicatory words, 'I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the skies in stars… that your eyes might be shining for me when we came'? Pure Mills and Boon.
Much has been written of Lawrence's changes of name and the anonymous forays into the Royal Air Force and the Tank Corps. Was this a real wish to escape notoriety or yet another example of his 'backing into the limelight'? Christened by some Private Napoleon Alexander Trotsky Meek, he was hardly an insignificant serviceman.
On a fleet of Brough Superior 1000cc motorbikes he visited friends including Bernard Shaw, John Buchan, Lady Astor and Winston Churchill. Shaw remarked that 'if he hides in a quarry he puts red flags all round', while Noel Coward neatly skewered Lawrence's over-conspicuous modesty with the start of a letter: 'Dear 338171 - may I call you 338?'
The exhibition traces Lawrence's legacy well. Most modern images come from David Lean's 1962 film, Lawrence of Arabia, in which Peter O'Toole stepped up the acting ladder - and added a foot in height to the character he played.
Leslie Howard, Dirk Bogarde, Albert Finney and Marlon Brando were all once touted for the title role. How might the choice of any of them have changed our perceptions of this man?
The great strength of the exhibition resides in the different levels of information and interpretation. I am not a great fan of audioguides - all that shuffling about, half hearing a commentary - but this one is excellent, producing extra material and an occasional astringency that cuts across the adulatory tone of the visual displays.
The exhibition is clearly popular, but could have been designed with greater space and fewer corners and turns. The walls are dominated by large images of Lawrence in all media. Do we get any closer to the man?
Malcolm Brown, the historical adviser to the exhibition and author of the accompanying coffee table book - great pictures but a trite text - would have us believe so.
'His legacy,' he suggests, 'is not in his achievements… but in his humanity and his vulnerability… he still has power to fascinate and astonish.'
I am not sure if there is indeed life inside the carapace of the legend. Aldous Huxley got closest to the truth when he described Lawrence as 'one of those great men for whom one feels intensely sorry, because he was nothing but a great man'.
Peter Lewis is a writer and a past director of Beamish, the North of England Open Air Museum
Project data
Cost: £500,000
Main supporter: The Economist Group
Exhibition design: Barry Mazur, Imperial War Museum
Exhibition ends: 17 April 2006
'The chief business of the nation,' said that wisest of commentators, HL Mencken, 'is the setting up of heroes… mainly bogus.'
If so, this has been a vintage period for celebrations of clayfooted idols, with 2005 marking the passing of 200 years since Nelson expired so ostentatiously at Trafalgar. Had he lived, naval regulations and the excessive sillinesses of his private life would surely have denied him not only column inches but enduring fame.
Also marked last year was the 70th anniversary of the death of that other ultimate ego, Lawrence of Arabia. A finely constructed and researched exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London, subtitled The Life, The Legend, seeks to explain his allure. The result is a collection of images, artefacts and memorabilia that sometimes borders on hagiography but is never less than fascinating.
Most of the relics of the life of TE Lawrence are here, from a lock of his baby hair to the purse carried by one of the boy cyclists involved in the road accident that caused Lawrence's death. From the National Archives at Kew comes the newly discovered map outlining proposals for the reconstruction of the Middle East at the end of the first world war.
His arguments, that there was no case 'for separating Sunni and Shia Arabs', and that, when it comes to strategy, 'better the Arabs do it tolerably than you do it perfectly… it is their war', have a curiously modern resonance.
The displays are chronological. The story of Lawrence and his four brothers, the illegitimate sons of an Anglo-Irish landowner and the family governess, are chronicled, as are his studies in history at Oxford. His progress from working archaeologist and photographer in Syria to military and intelligence activist in the Arab Revolt are seamless.
There is a wealth of detail, written and visual, to illustrate the volatility of these short years. The strange alliance of Sir Edmund Allenby, the conventional British general, and Lawrence, the unorthodox guerrilla fighter, adds poignancy to Lawrence's realisation that he had been used as an agent to deny the Arabs their promised reward.
I was disappointed by only one aspect of this section. There is too much sentiment and not enough sand. The images are too small. I longed for a large blow-up of one of Lawrence's own atmospheric photographs, like that of the approach to Wadi Rumm, to convey a spatial sense of the desert. As a result we become over-dependent on the images from the illustrated travelogues of the American journalist Lowell Thomas.
Originally billed as 'With Allenby in Palestine - under the direction of Dale Carnegie', Lawrence in Arabia was the supporting act. Almost immediately he became the superstar whose celluloid exploits filled Covent Garden and the Royal Albert Hall.
The event was promoted as 'a tale of wild adventure - colourful as the Arabian Nights, poetic as the Rubaiyat', a story of 'a human being endowed with God-given powers… another Robert Clive… another Gordon… another Cortez'.
Lawrence seems to have been both gratified and irritated by the fame. 'It isn't that I hate being known - but I can't afford it: nobody gets so victimised by well-meaning people as a poor celebrity, a tin can attached to a cat's tail.' He wished for a reputation as a scholar and thinker.
His major work, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, with its portentous title and style, remains in print. But how many readers have got beyond the first dedicatory words, 'I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the skies in stars… that your eyes might be shining for me when we came'? Pure Mills and Boon.
Much has been written of Lawrence's changes of name and the anonymous forays into the Royal Air Force and the Tank Corps. Was this a real wish to escape notoriety or yet another example of his 'backing into the limelight'? Christened by some Private Napoleon Alexander Trotsky Meek, he was hardly an insignificant serviceman.
On a fleet of Brough Superior 1000cc motorbikes he visited friends including Bernard Shaw, John Buchan, Lady Astor and Winston Churchill. Shaw remarked that 'if he hides in a quarry he puts red flags all round', while Noel Coward neatly skewered Lawrence's over-conspicuous modesty with the start of a letter: 'Dear 338171 - may I call you 338?'
The exhibition traces Lawrence's legacy well. Most modern images come from David Lean's 1962 film, Lawrence of Arabia, in which Peter O'Toole stepped up the acting ladder - and added a foot in height to the character he played.
Leslie Howard, Dirk Bogarde, Albert Finney and Marlon Brando were all once touted for the title role. How might the choice of any of them have changed our perceptions of this man?
The great strength of the exhibition resides in the different levels of information and interpretation. I am not a great fan of audioguides - all that shuffling about, half hearing a commentary - but this one is excellent, producing extra material and an occasional astringency that cuts across the adulatory tone of the visual displays.
The exhibition is clearly popular, but could have been designed with greater space and fewer corners and turns. The walls are dominated by large images of Lawrence in all media. Do we get any closer to the man?
Malcolm Brown, the historical adviser to the exhibition and author of the accompanying coffee table book - great pictures but a trite text - would have us believe so.
'His legacy,' he suggests, 'is not in his achievements… but in his humanity and his vulnerability… he still has power to fascinate and astonish.'
I am not sure if there is indeed life inside the carapace of the legend. Aldous Huxley got closest to the truth when he described Lawrence as 'one of those great men for whom one feels intensely sorry, because he was nothing but a great man'.
Peter Lewis is a writer and a past director of Beamish, the North of England Open Air Museum
Project data
Cost: £500,000
Main supporter: The Economist Group
Exhibition design: Barry Mazur, Imperial War Museum
Exhibition ends: 17 April 2006
