Mr Turner screening and Q&A with Mike Leigh

I spent a lovely evening yesterday watching a screening of Mike Leigh's new film Mr Turner. The film was beautiful plenty of stunning scenery and interesting caricaturisation.

Like the Tate's current exhibition it focuses upon the later years of Turner's turbulent life beginning at the height of his fame and success and then taking you through the death of his father, the decline of his health and his relationship with Mrs Booth and his housekeeper Hannah Danby.

Perhaps one of the most interesting things about the making of this film was that the extraordinary Timothy Spall studied painting for 2 years in order to prepare himself for the role. It adds an authenticity to the film on two levels, firstly it means that the shots of Spall painting can be filmed seamlessly and secondly it gives the sense that the actor understands the character and relates to him on another level. 

To be able to watch it at the Tate a stones throw away from some of the artists most celebrated masterpieces added a whole new dynamic to the screening.

I encourage everyone to go and see the film it is a long one but it is time well spent.

Poetic Pairing: September 2014

La Solitude 1866 Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

William Henry Davies

Poetic Pairing: August 2014

Moonlight 1895 Edvard Munch

Silver

Slowly, silently, now the moon

Walks the night in her silver shoon;

This way, and that, she peers, and sees

Silver fruit upon silver trees;

One by one the casements catch

Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;

Couched in his kennel, like a log,

With paws of silver sleeps the dog;

From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep

Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;

A harvest mouse goes scampering by,

With silver claws, and silver eye;

And moveless fish in the water gleam,

By silver reeds in a silver stream.

Walter De La Mare

Poetic Pairings: July 2014

Angel of the Last Judgement 1911 Kandinsky

Everyone Sang

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;

And I was filled with such delight

As prisoned birds must find in freedom 

Winging wildly across the white

Orchards and dark-green fields; on; on' and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted,

And beauty came like the setting sun.

My heart was shaken with tears; and horror

Drifted away ... O but every one

Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing

will never be done

Siegfried Sassoon

Poetic Pairings: June 2014

The Kiss 1908-09 Gustav Klimt

He Wishes For The Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W.B Yeats

Poetic Pairing: May 2014

April Love 1855-56 Arthur Hughes

The Miller's Daughter

 

It is the miller's daughter,

And she is grown so dear, so dear,

That I would be the jewel

That trembes in her ear;

For hid in ringlets day and night,

I'd touch her neck so warm and white.

 

And I would be the girdle

About her dainty dainty waist,

And her heart would beat against me,

In sorrow and I in rest;

And I should known if it beat right,

I'd clasp it round so close and tight.

 

And I would be the necklace,

And all day long to fall and rise

 Upon her balmy bosom,

With her laughter or her sighs;

And I would lie so light, so light,

I scarce should be unclasp'd at night.

Love that hath us in the net,

Can he pass, and we forget?

Many suns arise and set;

Many a chance the years beget;

Love the gift is Love the debt.

Even so.

 Love is hurt, with jar and fret;

Love is made a vague regret;

Eyes with idle tears are wet;

Idle habit links us yet.

 What is love? for we forget:

Ah no! no!

Alfred Lord Tennyson

When this painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1856 the last six lines of this poem were placed alongside it.

Poetic Pairing: April 2014

Vessels at anchor and rowing boats in a calm sea William Lionel Wyllie National Maritime Museum

Extract from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

 Down Dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,

'Twas sad as sad could be;

And we did speak only to break

The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky,

The bloody Sun, at noon,

Right up above the mast did stand,

No bigger than the moon.

Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, every where,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge