So when you go round Tate Britain you get an idea of what it was like when people who appreciated art were stumbling their way along, not knowing what they were going to find or what they were going to like. Nowadays our view of artists of both the past and the present is largely steered and manipulated by an unholy alliance — not necessarily even a very conscious alliance — of exhibition curators, collectors, art historians, critics and dealers, all of whom have their own interest in the outcome (and all of whom contribute to the vast exhibition catalogues that need a caddy to carry them around).

Tate Britain at least gives one a taste of times when art lovers flew on their own wings in a mapless world, as I was once happy to do with my Chekhov stories.