Giovanni Battista Moroni at the Royal Academy: Getting Face to Face with the 16th Century

Yesterday I spent a spontaneous afternoon at the Royal Academy's Giovanni Battista Moroni exhibition. I didn't entirely know what to expect from it but I had seen some of the works in the National Gallery's collection so from what little I knew I was looking forward to it.

Moroni is one of the 16th century's many underestimated and overshadowed Italian renaissance artists. His lack of popularity must be down to his relatively niche clientele, he worked mainly in the area surrounding his home in Lombardy and he didn't travel as widly as many of his more well known contemporaries. Luckily for his reputation his paintings regained favour in the Victorian era when they appealled to the tastes and romantic sensibilities of collectors including the National Gallery's Charles Eastlake.

The exhibition is a relatively small one in the Sackler Wing but there is plenty in it and it should not be overlooked in favour of the glitzy Allen Jones or the heavy and awe inspiring Anselm Kiefer. The works chosen showcase a good cross section of Moroni's works including some altarpieces and portraits that encompass characters from various walks of Italian society from aristocrats to his most famous work the humble tailor (above).

While the altarpieces are interesting and show how effectively Moroni managed to appeal to his counter-reformation patrons it is of course his portraits that steal the show.

The care and sensitivity with which he treats his sitters is evident from the first room. He is able to capture more than just a likeness of his sitters but to portray something of their character.
We see rich aristocrats that look as though they have the weight of the world resting on their shoulders or who seem thrilled to be exactly where they are in life showing off their wealth and circumstance.

As well as being pscyhologically interesting the paintings are also a sumptuous visual spectacle. One of the features of his paintings is the bluey grey background he often employs. This allows the intricatly detailed costumes to pop of the canvas. We are shown a masterclass in painting the fashionable clothing and jewellery of the day notable examples being the 'boy in pink', the portrait of Isotta Bombatti and the gentleman pictured below in his cosy looking (and very on trend) fur.

I really enjoyed the exhibition and would recommend it to anyone interested in portraiture.

It runs until 25th January and costs £13.50 (£12 without donation)

Tuttle Takes Over

It is certainly the season for hot chocolate, crisp autumn walks, Christmas adverts and apparently the American artist Richard Tuttle. He is currently enjoying pride of place in the Tate Modern Turbine hall and has a display at the exciting and vibrant Whitechapel gallery.

I have found it difficult to warm to Tuttle’s turbine hall instillation. In the evening when the turbine hall gets darker the dramatic lighting that illuminates it comes into play and the vibrant colours of the fabrics do pop against the greys and blacks of the hall. I also really rather like the shadows in the folds of the red fabric on the side you see immediately as you walk in. However it's a work I have found hard to love or understand.

In an attempt to appreciate it on another level I decided to pop in to the Whitechapel gallery's display. Various people had told me that it had helped them to see him working on a scale that he was more familiar with and that they preferred this.

The exhibition entitled I Don't Know The Weave of Textile Language addresses the artists work using fabric. There were a couple of pieces that I particularly liked. The work which showed a wooden frame with white fabric falling off it which was reminiscent of a canvas on the wall from which the fabric has become detached made me think twice. It reminded me of the importance of textiles in so much of the art produced after the early 1500s. It provides the very base that supports some of the worlds most loved masterpieces; where would Gainsborough's Blue Boy be without the very fabric that supports him?

There were also two very beautiful works from 2008 which involved bands of fabric which had been dyed and then suspended using silver rings hung on nails into the wall. The edges of the fabric has been left exposed and raw with strands of thread left to remind us of the very structure of the sheet we are looking at. On one of the panels of fabric there was this vibrant and crispy splash of a neon yellow paint which draws you in and forces you to examine the way that the ink has bled into the fabric.

The works I liked best where those that made you really look at fabric, a material we take for granted, and to see the beauty in its simplicity. To see how it is constructed and the different ways it can be used and treated.

This said I did struggle with the exhibition, the artist and the gallery force you to take the initiative and leaves you to take from it what you will. I encourage you to go and do just that, the exhibition runs until the 14th December.

Poetic Pairing: November 2014

Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1 Whistler 1871

When you are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look 

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

W. B. Yeats

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