It will inject some much needed colour into your day.
Saturday, 8 March 2014
Last days of Klee at Tate
If you haven't been to see the work of this wonderful artist then head to tate to get it before it's gone. (Closes this Sunday) There even a late opening until 8 on Sunday.
The Fine Art Society - A Barrister's Collection
After my Italian class I decided to take a little walk through the park and head down the glitzy and glamorous New Bond Street to visit The Fine Art Society.
At the moment they are showing an exhibition of the private art collection of lawyer William M Ballantyne 'A Barrister's Collection'. It is always fasinating to look at the private collection of one individual. There was recently a sale at Sotheby's of the collection of Stanley J. Seeger. It is intriging to look at the works that collectors bring together and how this reflects their personal tastes and interests and to see the interesting links that exist between the works they buy.
Ballantyne's collection spans the ages, including a 14th Century Siennese wedding chest, paintings by the old master's, 19th century works and modern British paintings.
It is not a huge collection but there are some lovely pieces. I was particularly drawn to an etching by Millet 'La Grande Bergere', a lively lithograph by Bonnard, a stunning painting of a washer woman by Harold Gilman below and the atmospheric oil painting 'Bethleham, Looking towards the Dead Sea also below.
At the moment they are showing an exhibition of the private art collection of lawyer William M Ballantyne 'A Barrister's Collection'. It is always fasinating to look at the private collection of one individual. There was recently a sale at Sotheby's of the collection of Stanley J. Seeger. It is intriging to look at the works that collectors bring together and how this reflects their personal tastes and interests and to see the interesting links that exist between the works they buy.
Ballantyne's collection spans the ages, including a 14th Century Siennese wedding chest, paintings by the old master's, 19th century works and modern British paintings.
Detail of Siennese Marriage Chest Attr. Ambrogio Lorenzetti 14th Century (horrible image through glass apologies)
It is not a huge collection but there are some lovely pieces. I was particularly drawn to an etching by Millet 'La Grande Bergere', a lively lithograph by Bonnard, a stunning painting of a washer woman by Harold Gilman below and the atmospheric oil painting 'Bethleham, Looking towards the Dead Sea also below.
The Washerwoman 'Le lavendeuse' 1911 Harold Gilman
Bethleham, Looking Towards the Dead Sea 1853 David Roberts
So if you are in the area with a little time to pass then pop in and do some fantasy painting shopping!
The exhibition runs until 21st March.
Sunday, 2 March 2014
Poetic Pairing: March 2014
This months poetic pairing is a poem inspired by this 14th Century sculptural tomb of an aristocratic couple in Chichester Cathedral.
Tomb of Richard FitzAlan 10th Earl of Arundel and his wife Eleanor of Lancaster 14th Century Chichester Cathedral
An Arundel Tomb
Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd–
The little dogs under their feet.
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd–
The little dogs under their feet.
Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.
They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends could see:
A sculptor’s sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends could see:
A sculptor’s sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.
They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
Their air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they
Their supine stationary voyage
Their air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they
Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,
Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:
Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone finality
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.
Untruth. The stone finality
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.
Philip Larkin
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Henry Moore
During today's artistic wanderings I came across an artist whose work I have a definite soft spot for. His name is Henry Moore and no I don't mean the modernist sculptor, rather an artist born in the previous century. I am sure this artists reputation has been damaged in part by the unfortunate coincidence of sharing names with one of Britain's most loved and well known sculptors.
This Henry Moore was born in 1831 in a very different era, a few years before the abolition of slavery in Britain and it's empire, the year Victor Hugo published Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Darwin set off for his travels and rather bizarrely the inventor of Coca-cola (John Stith Pemberton) was born. Imagine... a world without coke.
Henry Moore was a painter of landscapes and had a particular penchant for dramatic seascapes and marine scenes usually in the English Channel.
He had a gift when it came to the realistic representations of waves that can only be explained by hours spent observing them. It must have been a fairly difficult enterprise. His paintings often forgo a foreground jumping directly in to the representation of the churning sea. This gives a sense of immediacy to the paintings, you can just imagine the artist slaving away sketching, painting or simply observing the sea. In fact one story reads that he suffered from rheumatism after a particularly intensive painting session during a gale. Perhaps a gale similar to the one in the painting below described simply as a Winter Gale in the Channel. We can see the rolling clouds the intense darkness of the sky and the rays of sunshine breaking through the clouds. You can almost hear the shrieking gannets looking for washed up food in the breaking waves. A familiar sight to anyone who knows the sea.
My heart was originally won by this artist because he painted a part of the world that I love more than any other, Alderney. In 1886 he painted a view of the Race of Alderney which is a dangerous tidal race reaching more than 11 knots. It seperates the Island of Alderney from France. However like many dangerous currents it has the most innocent of appearances.
He shows us a dark choppy water surface with white peaks dotted around and the cliffs of the island and two small sailing ships in the background.
It is not the most dramatic of his paintings but it tugs on my heartstrings and I believe that his paintings would do the same to anyone who loves, lives by or works on the sea. In them he demonstrates a profound understanding of the calm, the drama and the danger of the waves he paints.
This Henry Moore was born in 1831 in a very different era, a few years before the abolition of slavery in Britain and it's empire, the year Victor Hugo published Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Darwin set off for his travels and rather bizarrely the inventor of Coca-cola (John Stith Pemberton) was born. Imagine... a world without coke.
Henry Moore was a painter of landscapes and had a particular penchant for dramatic seascapes and marine scenes usually in the English Channel.
The Wreck Henry Moore 1875 City of London Corporation
He had a gift when it came to the realistic representations of waves that can only be explained by hours spent observing them. It must have been a fairly difficult enterprise. His paintings often forgo a foreground jumping directly in to the representation of the churning sea. This gives a sense of immediacy to the paintings, you can just imagine the artist slaving away sketching, painting or simply observing the sea. In fact one story reads that he suffered from rheumatism after a particularly intensive painting session during a gale. Perhaps a gale similar to the one in the painting below described simply as a Winter Gale in the Channel. We can see the rolling clouds the intense darkness of the sky and the rays of sunshine breaking through the clouds. You can almost hear the shrieking gannets looking for washed up food in the breaking waves. A familiar sight to anyone who knows the sea.
Winter Gale in the Channel Wolverhampton Art Gallery 1872
My heart was originally won by this artist because he painted a part of the world that I love more than any other, Alderney. In 1886 he painted a view of the Race of Alderney which is a dangerous tidal race reaching more than 11 knots. It seperates the Island of Alderney from France. However like many dangerous currents it has the most innocent of appearances.
The Race of Alderney 1886 Cheltenham Art Gallery
He shows us a dark choppy water surface with white peaks dotted around and the cliffs of the island and two small sailing ships in the background.
It is not the most dramatic of his paintings but it tugs on my heartstrings and I believe that his paintings would do the same to anyone who loves, lives by or works on the sea. In them he demonstrates a profound understanding of the calm, the drama and the danger of the waves he paints.
Friday, 21 February 2014
When it comes to flooding the more things change the more they stay the same
This year parts of the United Kingdom have suffered serious flooding due to the frankly unacceptable quantity of rain we have experienced this winter.
We have all seen the dramatic and striking images of the flooding and it led me to wonder how artists have rendered the floods of years gone by. So here are just a couple of the interesting works and comparisons I came across.
The flooded fields of Holland and Somerset:
Flood waters in Chertsey after the Thames burst it's banks:
Whether in paintings or in current day photos nature never ceases to put me in awe.
We have all seen the dramatic and striking images of the flooding and it led me to wonder how artists have rendered the floods of years gone by. So here are just a couple of the interesting works and comparisons I came across.
The flooded fields of Holland and Somerset:
Flooded Fields in Holland with Silver Birches, Unknown Artist The Shipley Art Gallery
Flooded high streets:
Nuneaton Floods Warwickshire John Woodward Lines 1975 Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery
A train takes a treacherous journey along the coast in Saltcoats Scotland and a similar event in 1894:
Durston Somerset, Flooded out Thomas H Heawood 1894 Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust
Take to the boats!:
A Flood Leon Augustin Lhermitte Manchester City Galleries 1876
Two red cars years apart brave the roads:
Floods Roland Vivian Pitchforth c.1935 Tate
High tides causing huge waves such as this one over the breakwater in my beloved island of Alderney:
1953 Floods in Southwald, Suffolk Frank Forward 1953 Southwald Museum
Flood waters in Chertsey after the Thames burst it's banks:
Llugwy in Flood 1881 Benjamin Williams Leader Oxford College Anon II, University of Oxford
Cutty sark: Lantern Making
If you are in Greenwich today or looking for something to fill the last couple of days of half term then come and join us at the Cutty Sark!
We are making Chinese paper lanterns to celebrate Chinese New Year and to learn about the importance of lanterns on ships. Oops nearly forgot one of the most important reasons... Fun!
The workshop is free with the regular ticket to visit the ship and takes place in the Sammy Ofer gallery from 11.30-1.30 and again from 2.00-4.00.
Thursday, 20 February 2014
New Order II: British Art Today
Today after my Italian class I decided to make the most of a brief window of sunshine and beautiful clear blue sky to take a short walk to Kings road and visit the Saatchi gallery. I was particularly interested in the New Order II: British Art today exhibition that opened on the 24th of last month.
When I arrived the gallery was bathed in sunlight and it really is an appealing building when the weather is nice.
This show is the sequel to the New Order: British Art exhibition which opened at the end of last year and ran into the early days of 2014. It is a continuation of the galleries commitment to promoting the works of young artist and in this particular instance new British talent.
The exhibition includes the work of 13 artists. Make sure that before you dive head first into their paintings, installations and sculptures themselves you take a look at the wall at the entrance where photographs and a couple of details about the exhibitors are clustered together.
I found this wall of artist fascinating it allowed you to get a glimpse of how the artists want to be seen and in turn how they wanted to be understood. One artist Dan Rees chose to forsake the photograph of himself in favor of an image of one of his works. While the photographs of the younger artists tended to have a more instagrammy feel to them. The ages of the exhibitors was also interesting ranging from Tom Gidley the eldest of the group born in 1968 and Finbar Ward who was a fellow 1990 baby. This reveals an age range of 22 years amongst the group.
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I was drawn to the exhibition as I had already had a quick glimpse around the Body Language exhibition on the lower two floors which had left me seriously underwhelmed.
The stand out room for me had to be room number 13 which included the works by Martine Poppe and Virgile Ittah. Both of these artist completed a postgraduate degree in 2013 the former at the Slade School of Fine Art and the latter at the Royal College of Art. Ittah's work takes centre stage in the room, literally, three of her sculptural works are scattered around the space.
Her sculptures are life size figures sculpted in wax. Wax is a beautiful medium that allows the artist to create dramatic textures and the sense of heavy melting and dripping forms while still allowing careful modelling to create incredibly lifelike faces and bodies. The sculptor has used the medium to wonderful effect with these works and they remind me of the sculptures of the tortured French sculptor (and Rodin's lover) Camille Claudel.
On the walls the paintings by Martine Poppe initially seem to play second fiddle to their more dramatic neighbor but when I did turn my attention to them I fell in love. The paintings are done on polyester restoration fabric more commonly used by painting conservators. The paintings have a blurred quality which you expect to go away on closer or further observation in the style of impressionist or pointillist painters. However it never does. This particular painting showing silhouettes of people behind a clock face is a stunning work that could grace any contemporary private collection.
Each artist has something interesting to offer these are just my personal favourites and I recommend going and spending a lovely day in Chelsea and choosing your own.
When I arrived the gallery was bathed in sunlight and it really is an appealing building when the weather is nice.
This show is the sequel to the New Order: British Art exhibition which opened at the end of last year and ran into the early days of 2014. It is a continuation of the galleries commitment to promoting the works of young artist and in this particular instance new British talent.
The exhibition includes the work of 13 artists. Make sure that before you dive head first into their paintings, installations and sculptures themselves you take a look at the wall at the entrance where photographs and a couple of details about the exhibitors are clustered together.
I found this wall of artist fascinating it allowed you to get a glimpse of how the artists want to be seen and in turn how they wanted to be understood. One artist Dan Rees chose to forsake the photograph of himself in favor of an image of one of his works. While the photographs of the younger artists tended to have a more instagrammy feel to them. The ages of the exhibitors was also interesting ranging from Tom Gidley the eldest of the group born in 1968 and Finbar Ward who was a fellow 1990 baby. This reveals an age range of 22 years amongst the group.
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I was drawn to the exhibition as I had already had a quick glimpse around the Body Language exhibition on the lower two floors which had left me seriously underwhelmed.
The stand out room for me had to be room number 13 which included the works by Martine Poppe and Virgile Ittah. Both of these artist completed a postgraduate degree in 2013 the former at the Slade School of Fine Art and the latter at the Royal College of Art. Ittah's work takes centre stage in the room, literally, three of her sculptural works are scattered around the space.
Her sculptures are life size figures sculpted in wax. Wax is a beautiful medium that allows the artist to create dramatic textures and the sense of heavy melting and dripping forms while still allowing careful modelling to create incredibly lifelike faces and bodies. The sculptor has used the medium to wonderful effect with these works and they remind me of the sculptures of the tortured French sculptor (and Rodin's lover) Camille Claudel.
On the walls the paintings by Martine Poppe initially seem to play second fiddle to their more dramatic neighbor but when I did turn my attention to them I fell in love. The paintings are done on polyester restoration fabric more commonly used by painting conservators. The paintings have a blurred quality which you expect to go away on closer or further observation in the style of impressionist or pointillist painters. However it never does. This particular painting showing silhouettes of people behind a clock face is a stunning work that could grace any contemporary private collection.
Each artist has something interesting to offer these are just my personal favourites and I recommend going and spending a lovely day in Chelsea and choosing your own.
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