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Showing posts with label National Gallery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label National Gallery. Show all posts

Friday, October 29, 2021

Art gets me every time!

 

Poussin and the Dance : Beeny, Emily A., Whitlum-cooper, Francesca, Poussin,  Nicolas: Amazon.es: Libros

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My un-birthday continues as my mind works reality into a progression of gifts (free swimming lane; excellent cup of tea in the café; delicious menu del dia; a glimpse of sunshine etc) as well as an actual gift, the catalogue from the National Gallery’s exhibition of Poussin and The Dance, which I have now read.  It always helps the process when so many of the pages are illustrations!

     I have a soft spot for Poussin, even though I often find his paintings repulsive in their Classical, static, theatricality.  He was the first painter that I studied in the History of Art section of my O Level Art.  The list of French painters we were asked to consider stretched from Poussin to Picasso – even though Picasso was Spanish, born in Málaga, Andalusia, in southern Spain (though Catalonia claims him, and Picasso himself said that his soul was Catalan) though I think that the course talked of French Painting rather than French painters, so with the amount of time he spent in France, and the importance of his early work being completed in France, they might have a claim as well.  I might add that all the painters were white and male – surely something that would not be tolerated today!

     The Catalogue of Poussin and The Dance is something that can be held in one hand and the essays which make up the academic content of the tome are very readable and approachable.

     As is usual for me, the art that I find the most engaging is the preparatory work of sketches.  There is one compositional sketch where you have to keep telling yourself that this artist was born in 1594 – because the sketch looks like something that could have been produced by an artist from one of the -isms of the early twentieth century!

     The catalogue ends with a concentration on A Dance to the Music of Time, which was painted in the 1630s, and is now in The Wallace Collection in London.


Dance to the Music of Time by Nicholas Poussin ( P-R ) officeresearch  Poussin, Nicolas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     If you have not been to The Wallace Collection, then you should go.  It is free, it’s in the centre of London and it has treasures – as well as an excellent café in the refashioned courtyard.  I always enjoy pointing out that The Wallace Collection and the building in which it is situated (Hertford House, Manchester Square) was given to the nation in an astonishing gesture of generosity by the FRENCH widow of Sir Richard Wallace in 1897.  

 

Lady Wallace in widowhood, probably early 1890s, Wallace Collection... |  Download Scientific Diagram

     

 

 

 

 Just remember that when the Brexiteer cretins start bad-mouthing our closest neighbours.

     Go to the Wallace Collection website at:

https://www.wallacecollection.org/art/collection/history-collection/

to get a flavour of what is FREE for you to visit in real life.

     I am conscious, as I urge others to go to see a collection, that I have not been to an art gallery for far too long.  Admittedly in this benighted country, national collections are not free to view, and I am sure that if many Conservatives had their way (as they did under the odious Heath) they would impose museum charges.  In my view FREE ENTRY TO NATIONAL COLLECTIONS is a right, there should be no restrictions for a person to view what is a distillation of their heritage.  To get a sense of the range of FREE entries to places of wonder that I greedily visited when I was resident in Wales, check out:

https://museum.wales/

     It is about time that I revisited MNAC in Barcelona which, even if it is not free, I do have a very reasonably priced season ticket, so I am never under the obligation of “having to see everything” when I go there to “get my money’s worth”!

     One thing that reading about Poussin has prompted me to do, is think about reading A Dance to the Music of Time sequence by Anthony Powell, in all its volumes.   

 

A Dance to the Music of Time, Complete Set: 1st Movement, 2nd Movement, 3rd  Movement, 4th Movement by Anthony Powell

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have one or two of the novels lurking on my bookshelves, but I have never started it because I hadn’t collected the “full set” – a specious reason for literary inactivity, but one I think I will begin to remedy.

     If I can find the books in the grotesque disorder of my so-called library!  Whatever, it is always fun searching and I will probably end up reading something entirely different, having been seduced by the magic of long closed pages.

Saturday, August 11, 2018

The direction is set!

File:Adam Elsheimer self portrait 01.jpg
Adam Elsheimer, self portrait



The hunt is on! The game’s afoot!

There is nothing quite so satisfying as playing at research. I have had numerous opportunities to do this seriously, but have generally squandered those opportunities, and have instead settled for the more mundane and parochial research of Man + computer + limited library.

Resultado de imagen de al gallery edinburgh
Having been fascinated by a painting that I saw in the National Gallery in Edinburgh, I am slowly garnering information and indications about the life and work of Adam Elsheimer.


Elsheimer (1578-1610) is a famously un-famous painter, whose work is generally unknown and unappreciated, but a painter who influenced a whole direction of pictorial representation, influencing painters as famous as Rembrandt and he was a painter who counted Rubens as an admiring friend.

Of course, in the world of art history Elsheimer is well regarded and has a respectable number of scholarly monographs and books written about him, but outside this rarefied world his is not a name that comes to mind when talking about great artists.

Resultado de imagen de elsheimer
Adam Elsheimer. Rest on the Flight to Egypt.

Probably his most famous painting is “Rest on the Flight to Egypt” where the Holy Family is depicted in a landscape setting at night. Illumination comes from separate sources: the moon and its reflection on water; the constellations and a depiction of the Milky Way; shepherds around a blazing fire and a torch held by Joseph. This is a small painting of oil on copper measuring only 31 x 41 cm. It is believed to be one of the first naturalistic depictions of a night-time scene with accurate rendering of stars in their constellations. It has been suggested that Elsheimer might have been influenced in his painting by the discoveries of Galileo. It was a painting that Elsheimer kept for himself, in his bedroom and may well have been one of the last paintings that he completed before his early death at the age of thirty-two.

Elsheimer was a meticulous artist whose paintings demand intimate viewing. Indeed, in one exhibition of his work, visitors were given a plastic magnifying glass as part of their admission price so that they could look at aspects of his work that were difficult to appreciate with the naked eye: “Devil in the detail” was the subtitle of the exhibition!

Elsheimer was German, born in Frankfurt and ended his life in Italy. Although he produced a small number of paintings because of his attention to detail and the painstaking way in which he worked, the influence of his paintings was extended throughout Europe by their use as the inspiration for a number of etchings and prints. The influence of his tiny paintings explodes into something more epic in the much larger paintings of Rubens and Claude.

Although Elsheimer was modest about his own ability, he was famous and, what is more, he seems to have been what you might term “an artist’s artist” who was highly regarded and much copied.

Altogether, Elsheimer is a fascinating character as well as a wonderfully gifted artist and well worthy of more study. At least by me.

The first thing to do is (breathe it not to Toni) buy more books. I have no books on Elsheimer, and reading through what I have already written that is hardly surprising. His name does not jump out at you from what is generally a fairly meagre collection of volumes of art history in most bookshops.

I will, assiduously, set about building up a collection of and about Elsheimer that will be the wonder of . . . well, at least my street. And yes, I do realize that owning a single volume of his work will probably allow me to gain that accolade!

If the fates are generous then I should be able to utilize not only my course books from my last OU Renaissance Reimagined module, but also the course books that I have bought from the module that I cannot afford to take about art and its global histories.

Although it seems a simple statement to say that Elsheimer was born in Frankfurt and moved to Rome via Venice, it does not give the requisite detail to realise just what the moves meant and what the places represented.

Italy (Metternich’s famous dismissal as nothing more than a “geographical expression”) was not a country then; Rome was the home of the papacy, but a European power in its own right; Venice was one of the most powerful city states in the world with financial and cultural links to the known and unknown world, a centre where the interchange of cultures could thrive. While Frankfurt, a commercial and intellectual centre by the middle of the sixteenth century, had become crucial in the development of the Reformation linked with the rise of a confident middle class. In other words, there is a lot to think about before you even get to a consideration of the works of art. I do enjoy a good wallow in historical, social, religious and political background!

I am not sure if we have any Elsheimer works in Barcelona, but I will find out. And if not, then I will travel to where there are.

Any excuse!






Saturday, May 02, 2015

The real meaning of tired!


Time to go and see, indeed!

Or not.
           
The problem was, I was a day early, the course starts on the 2nd and not the 1st.  Friday is not Saturday, no matter how hard you try and make it so!
           
So, a day to play with and that leads us to:


How To Fill A Day In London When You Are Unexpectedly Able To Do Something Else

So, the first thing is to go for the swim that you thought would be impossible because of the start of the Study Day.
            The Camden Council Pool next to St Pancras is part of a large complex that includes a pool (with changning multicloured dimpled glass wall); a gym; a small children’s library; a café,  and who knows what else might be hidden in its imposing sturucture.
            The 25m pool has a feature that I have not come (or swum) across before: an adjustable floor at the shallow end which makes it even shallower for school parties.  This may be great for school parties but it makes proper swimming impossible and you have to adjust your stroke to a sort of “gathering to your bosom” scooping motion to stop yourself hitting your fingertips against the raised floor of the pool!  So, not only do you have to suffer the high-pitched squeals of apprentice humans, but you also have to endure swimming in a pool equivalent of a glorified puddle for part of your length!
            I sincerely hope the technology is too expensive for this to be adopted by many other authorities, and I am a little hesitant about speaking of it for fear that my words are seen and acted upon by some neophyteophile public official!
            It also makes the time for my metric mile something about which I cannot boast and I have no new “achievements” to show as my smartwatch relentlessly documents my strangely slow progress. 
As far as I can see there is no way of programming child-friendly obstacles to progress into the data base.
            Swim completed and cup of tea drunk I was ready to throw myself onto and into culture.  First stop the V&A.

What is Luxury?

There was a hell of a lot of walking from the South Kensington tube station to the entrance of the Victoria and Albert Museum, but What is Luxury? – a V&A and Crafts Council exhibition more than justified the walk.
            This is a free, relatively small exhibition which with an intoxicating well chosen series of exhibits poses the question in the title and rather triumphantly does not come to any complete answers, but neatly turns the question into a culmination of possible answers held in each person’s character.
            There is expensive bling here: gold, diamonds, and exquisite craftmanship – but there is often a twist in the presentation and by a thoughtful progression of juxtapositions each glance of the spectator is complicated by the difficulty of an easy response.
            The exhibition is a totality and isolating a single element is to lessen the effect, but for those of you unable to go (Go!  It’s free!) I will pick out a few of the pieces which struck me.
            The star of the show, though not the showiest, was, for me a phosophor bronze dandelion chandelier – and that is not a metaphorical description.  The ‘shades’ of the lights are literally balls of dandelion seeds captured just before they were able to disperse!  The electricity which lights the LED bulbs travels along the intricate and delicate bronze scaffolding thus eliminating the need for wiring.  It is a thing of fragile beauty and has to be seen to be appreciated.
            At the other end of the fragile scale, one of the exhibits is a flat stone: a found object.  This stone has been selected for its assumed ability to facilitate ‘skipping’ across water when thrown.  It has been gilded with 24kt gold and comes complete with its own tailor-made leather pouch.
            The item which has been most photographed is Giovanni Corvaja’s Golden Fleece Headpiece (2009) which takes the form of what appears to be a golden fur trimmed hat which is actually woven from 16km of superfine golden thread using techniques developed over a ten year period.
            An exhibition which has to be seen to be believed.  And did I say that there was free admission?
            A long walk back to the underground station to get to Tate Britain.

The Rex Whistler Restaurant

One of the indulgences that I was determined to lavish on myself this trip was a visit to The Rex Whistler Restaurant in Tate Britain.  I have been patronising this artistic establishment ever since I went to the Tate as a student and couldn’t be bothered to wait in the queue for the self service restaurant and sat at a table in the Rex Whistler before I saw the cost of the food!
            It was worth it and I have repeated the experience each (almost) time I visit.
            My first course this time was pan fried Isle of Man scallops, Cornish baby squid with citron shallots.  This was followed by Gressingham duck breast, confit leg & savoy cabbage parcel, swede puree with seasonal potatoes.  I then had salted caramel chocolate pot and to end off I had a selection of British regional cheeses with a glass of port.  The wine was a bottle of Passagem and they even made me a pot of Earl Grey and English Breakfast tea when I could eat no more.
            If you are wondering why I have made no comment on the dishes, it is for the simple reason that each and every one of them was utterly delicious.
            I have no intention of revealing just how much I paid for this succession of culinary delights because I went outside the normal parameters of the set three (not four) course meal, but I would say that the three course meal costs just over thirty quid, and it’s worth it.  I had an extra course, a bottle of wine, a glass of port and a pot of tea – and it was still worth it!
            Thus fortified I ventured out into the gallery to view My Painting.

A Bigger Splash by David Hockney 1967

Having just had a very full and very leisurely meal I was in no fit position to stand around writing without some support so I hunted around for one of those little gallery folding chairs and took that to Hockney’s canvas and started pondering.
            Sitting with a Caro metal sculpture behind me and the Hockney in front of me, I presented an intimidating picture of academy and people behaved as if I was writing words of artistic profundity in my little notebook.
            From time to time I darted up to The Work and took photos of details that had taken my notice.  I do think that I looked at this painting in a different way from the way that I would have looked at it before I started this Art History Course.  I saw details and noticed techniques that I think would have passed me by before.
            I think that I have a couple of perceptions that will add weight to my observations.  At least I hope so.
            What a good painting it is!
            Tired, but not yet exhausted, I walked to the tube and went to Leicester Square to walk to The National Gallery.

Inventing Impressionism

The sub-title of this exhibition is ‘Paul Durand-Ruel and the modern art market’ and it collects together some of the paintings that went through Durand-Ruel’s hands as he tried to establish a market for the New Painting that Impressionism was at one time.
            This is a ravishing exhibition and god alone knows how much it cost to insure because the value of the stuff on show is probably hundreds of millions of pounds.  That doesn’t make much difference to the experience, but in a show which constantly points out how difficult it was to establish a market for these paintings (only a dozen or so sold in one epoch making exhibition!) it also shows how successful he was – eventually!
            Go on line and look at what is there, because there is too much which is too famous to go in to here.  It was an astonishing experience to go round it and the hefty catalogue looks as though it will provide me with hours of happy reading!  And looking of course.
            I couldn’t go to the National without looking at my Van Eyck and as I attempted to find it I read one of the many notices informing people that many of the galleries were closed because of industrial action.
            The management of the National is trying to privatize the employment of the guards and there has been a national outcry against this attempt to lower the working conditions and pay of a loyal group of workers.  I have already signed a petition to stop this retrograde action, but felt the need to do a little more.
            I asked for a comment form and wrote a strong letter to the authorities and I am now awaiting their reply!
            Fired up by my fearless letter writing I strode out into the growing gloom of central London and noticed that there were posters advertising an exhibition of the work of John Singer Sargent in the National Portrait Gallery.

Sargent: portraits of artists and friends

With my remaining strength I threw myself into the artistic fray once more and paid the not insubstantial entrance fee to an exhibition of an artist I have always admired for the sheer easy brilliance of his handling of paint.
            You get a long vista in one of the galleries and at the end you see Sargent’s masterpiece, the tweely named, but staggeringly accomplished, Carnation, lily, lily, rose – two young girls lighting paper lanterns at dusk in a garden with carnations, lilies and roses.  The capturing of a particular quality of light is extraordinary and the painting is one of the real treasures of the Tate.
            His ability to capture a character in paint is amazing and although at a distance his work seems highly finished, at close quarters you see exactly how free his brush strokes are.
            This exhibition also has his charcoal drawing of W B Yeats used as a frontispiece to the first volume of Yeats’ Collected Poems of 1908.
            Lots of things worth seeing here!

And so . . .

A short debate with myself about whether or not I could stay awake long enough to eat a meal ended with me prone on the bed.  And soon in it.
            Before I fell asleep, or rather plummeted into the darkness, I wondered how I ever managed to do even more in London when I was a mere stripling in my thirties.  And perhaps there is the answer!