In the midst of trying to accomplish things generally in life and in painting in particular, I have been reading a really wonderful book, Robert Peel, a Biography by Douglas Hurd, published a while ago in 2007.
Sir Robert Peel, painting by John Linnell, 1838; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
The vivid accounts of Peel's political career in the early to mid 1800s are unnerving in their relevancy and parallels with today's economic and political woes. But the quote that stopped me in my tracks is about bankers. Pithy and so apt for today's world that I could not resist quoting it - rather than talking about one of banking's step-children, namely art.
Describing Peel's assessment of different aspects of the state of Britain in 1841, Douglas Hurd wrote,
"Bankers would always be busy up the back stairs."
What a perfect description of the shenanigans we have all witnessed from the international banking community in recent years!