A picture like this appeals across the spectrum and has a thudding emotional, visceral power even if you are revulsed by the actions it portrays. In British cultural history, the Dionysian appetite for a rumble seems to be deeply engraved, as the shadow, the mirror, of our usual placid self-image. The very tranquillity of the way we so often portray ourselves ... calls for a daemonic underside of national identity.
I have blogged quite a few times about this aspect of British identity, the massive attraction of self-dissolving irrationality beyond the framework of suppression in which we live. I think that's the point that interested me - that Jonathan Jones has picked up that same theme of dissolution, rather than the whys and wherefores of this particular image. I think it will be overtaken by others in the weeks to come.
