What are You Looking at?

[kernelbogey]

.
... one of my niche interests - staffage - finally gets an exhibition of its own. And tied in with one of my favourite architects, Soane -

Aah! A new word!

[smittims]

Yes, many thanks. I've often noticed these little people and wondered if there was a term for them. I can well understand why this could be a particular fascination.

I might mention a similar odd predilection of my own : what I call 'forgotten corners'. Here are two examples.

Along the old A5 (Watling Street) in Telford (part of that very long east-west dead straight alignment of the road the Romans put in ) the course of the road was bent southwards to meet a junction with the M54. This left a 100yard stretch stranded, leading nowhere, but perfectly tarmac'd. For nearly 2,000 years it had been a busy main road; now it is a silent backwater except for the occasional tinkers' caravan.

I was once in a large new building full of glass corridors,,etc. As I wandered around I came upon a little glazed-in courtyard, where no-one went. I don't think you could even get into it. It's nice to think that one day a pussycat will find it a good place to hide away peacefully and lick his paws.

[gurnemanz]

Thanks for the various staffage links - new term for me as well. My wife was born in Saxony and we have Canaletto's Dresden Altmarkt in our living room wall (a reminder of what Dresden once looked like). Many years ago I held a birthday party at home, guests including various school colleagues. The art teacher was there and he took an interest in this picture and drew my attention to several figures standing in profile who appeared to have only one leg. Why take the trouble to paint their concealed rear leg?

[vinteuil]

thanks, Gurnemanz - interesting indeed!

Your Canaletto is of course the 'other Canaletto', viz Bernardo Bellotto rather than Giovanni Antonio Canal 'Canaletto'

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Bellotto,_Bernardo_-_Altmarkt-Dresden_1750-1.jpg

When Warsaw was rebuilt after the war they were able to use the highly detailed paintings by Bellotto to, effectively, build from the ground up. When I was based in Warsaw I was confused by the fact that the many Bellottos in the museum were all labelled 'Canaletto'!
[ wiki informs : "He was the student and nephew of the renowned Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto and sometimes used the latter's illustrious name, signing himself as Bernardo Canaletto. In Germany and Poland, Bellotto called himself by his uncle's name, Canaletto. This caused some confusion... "]

[gurnemanz]

thanks, Gurnemanz - interesting indeed!

Your Canaletto is of course the 'other Canaletto', viz Bernardo Bellotto rather than Giovanni Antonio Canal 'Canaletto'

Thanks for update. I had not fully grasped that fact. I should have. Just looked, it does say so on the back.

[gurnemanz]

I'm reminded of the figures depicted in Canaletto's paintings of London.

I have fond memories of an exhibition of Canaletto's London paintings at the Dulwich Art Gallery a few years ago, not just for the paintings but of taking my 90+ father along. He had grown up round there and we did a small nostalgia tour of the area. Special memories for him upon seeing the pictures, having known London well pre-Blitz.

[AHR]

My first visit to the refurbished Burrell Collection in Glasgow today on a fine spring morning. Many examples of enhanced educational material, much of it interactive, some of it really informative. Such an eclectic collection is, I find, overwhelming in its sheer profusion. Next time I'll confine myself to one area and concentrate on that. My eye is on the Nottingham alabasters. NB A Degas exhibition coming up from 24th of May to September for those who are interested.

[anorak]

I have fond memories of an exhibition of Canaletto's London paintings at the Dulwich Art Gallery a few years ago, not just for the paintings but of taking my 90+ father along. He had grown up round there and we did a small nostalgia tour of the area. Special memories for him upon seeing the pictures, having known London well pre-Blitz.

My wife and I also went to that Canaletto exhibition. Very enjoyable indeed. I came away with a print of this Canaletto Capriccio, which is on the wall not far from where I'm typing this post. It's such a charming painting, with lots of playful details. Nothing is spick and span. The walls and paving stones are filthy. The shades over the windows are hanging down at awkward angles. There's laundry hanging out of a window. And all these figures. Wealthy dandies and humble servants. I like to imagine that Canaletto is saying to us - there's a story here, but what is it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Canaletto_-_Capriccio_of_a_Renaissance_Palazzo_with_a_monumental_Staircase,_a_Clock_Tower_and_the_Arch_of_Titus_beyond.jpg

[Belgrove]

Tate Modern has a show, clumsily entitled ‘Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter, and the Blue Rider’, collecting works by a group of Munich based friends who were preoccupied with self-expression through their art. They declared their transcultural manifesto in the Blaue Reiter Almanac in 1912, but the First World War abruptly ceased its development, although its influence was picked up a decade later in the art of the Weimar Republic. It’s rather good, touching upon the connections with the music of Schoenberg and literature of Mann, among others. The exhibition’s poster uses the gorgeous and powerful painting ‘Tiger’ by Franz Marc which is a figurative/cubist hybrid of the beast at rest in the jungle, rendered in slabs of vivid, complementary colours. The use of colour by these artists may have been influenced by Matisse’s works of that period. Marriane Werefkin’s self portrait wears a huge crimson hat that frames the lurid complexion of her face as she stares out at the viewer with piercing demonic orange eyes, like Virginia Woolf’s mentality turned into colour. Albert Bloch’s Prize Fight uses the extremes of perspective and lighting seen in German expressionist films much later and presages George Bellows’ treatments of similar subjects. Connections using reference to synaesthesia are made between Kandinsky’s colourful abstracts with Schoenberg’s atonal works. So there is much here that can be seen to influence later work, which can nevertheless be appreciated as representing the culture of a place in a brief epoch. Tate nowadays likes to comment on the works it shows through the lens of colonialism and gender politics, which is so strained its become a laughable cliche. So just ignore its daft, stale blurb and enjoy the works for what they are, and (perish the thought), contemplate their meaning in the context of the times in which they were made. Now there’s a thought for Tate’s curators! On until mid October.

[Serial_Apologist]

Tate Modern has a show, clumsily entitled ‘Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter, and the Blue Rider’, collecting works by a group of Munich based friends who were preoccupied with self-expression through their art. They declared their transcultural manifesto in the Blaue Reiter Almanac in 1912, but the First World War abruptly ceased its development, although its influence was picked up a decade later in the art of the Weimar Republic. It’s rather good, touching upon the connections with the music of Schoenberg and literature of Mann, among others. The exhibition’s poster uses the gorgeous and powerful painting ‘Tiger’ by Franz Marc which is a figurative/cubist hybrid of the beast at rest in the jungle, rendered in slabs of vivid, complementary colours. The use of colour by these artists may have been influenced by Matisse’s works of that period. Marriane Werefkin’s self portrait wears a huge crimson hat that frames the lurid complexion of her face as she stares out at the viewer with piercing demonic orange eyes, like Virginia Woolf’s mentality turned into colour. Albert Bloch’s Prize Fight uses the extremes of perspective and lighting seen in German expressionist films much later and presages George Bellows’ treatments of similar subjects. Connections using reference to synaesthesia are made between Kandinsky’s colourful abstracts with Schoenberg’s atonal works. So there is much here that can be seen to influence later work, which can nevertheless be appreciated as representing the culture of a place in a brief epoch. Tate nowadays likes to comment on the works it shows through the lens of colonialism and gender politics, which is so strained its become a laughable cliche. So just ignore its daft, stale blurb and enjoy the works for what they are, and (perish the thought), contemplate their meaning in the context of the times in which they were made. Now there’s a thought for Tate’s curators! On until mid October.

Thanks for the notice for this exhibition, Belgrove. I will probably go, having affinities for German Expressionism. I've never liked TM's way of displaying art "generically", almost analogous to a concert organiser choosing to promote a concert one day consisting entirely of piano concertos, on another of symphonic poems; it makes no sense to me not to present it chronologically, or by era.

[smittims]

Although Kandinsky is surely the major figure I've always liked Marc's paintings particularly.

Schoenberg once exhibited pictures alongside the Blaue Reiter group. He's one of the few artists (Leonardo, Rossetti) whose works in his 'second' art are worthwhile in their own right (i.e even if he weren't a significant composer his paintings would still be interesting).

[Belgrove]

The National Portrait Gallery is not the first place one would think of to mount a substantial show of Francis Bacon’s works. But a major part of his output was of the human form and of specific subjects in particular, not least himself. Francis Bacon: Human Presence opens with a late self-portrait, his fleshy moon face emerging as a diffuse cloud from a black ground. It’s a melancholy image with the sense of a death mask, the eyes cast downwards. He painted the same subjects repeatedly, mostly friends and intimates with only a couple of commissions (an interesting one of John Sainsbury, who was a supporter). The technique used frequently is a kind of soft cubism, the face seen simultaneously from multiple perspectives but without angularity, a blurring akin to a camera aperture being left open. The colours are gorgeous, carmine, viridian, purples, maroon and every shade of flesh tone one can imagine, and some not. He refers to the portraits as ‘injuries’, for the face is deconstructed and reassembled, seemingly inside-out. In one disturbing and brilliantly rendered image we literally see the skull beneath the skin, a superposition of portrait and x-ray. Both major events in his artistic career, a retrospective at the Tate in 1962, and in Paris in 1971 were marred by personal tragedy immediately before their opening, and his response to these events is unflinchingly raw. So this is a thoughtful and important show, well worth a visit. On until 19 January 2025.

The reconfigured gallery is a great improvement on the old, with an impressively imposing entrance and spacious foyer rather than the pokey side-door to the National Gallery.

[johncorrigan]

The National Portrait Gallery is not the first place one would think of to mount a substantial show of Francis Bacon’s works. But a major part of his output was of the human form and of specific subjects in particular, not least himself. Francis Bacon: Human Presence opens with a late self-portrait, his fleshy moon face emerging as a diffuse cloud from a black ground. It’s a melancholy image with the sense of a death mask, the eyes cast downwards. He painted the same subjects repeatedly, mostly friends and intimates with only a couple of commissions (an interesting one of John Sainsbury, who was a supporter). The technique used frequently is a kind of soft cubism, the face seen simultaneously from multiple perspectives but without angularity, a blurring akin to a camera aperture being left open. The colours are gorgeous, carmine, viridian, purples, maroon and every shade of flesh tone one can imagine, and some not. He refers to the portraits as ‘injuries’, for the face is deconstructed and reassembled, seemingly inside-out. In one disturbing and brilliantly rendered image we literally see the skull beneath the skin, a superposition of portrait and x-ray. Both major events in his artistic career, a retrospective at the Tate in 1962, and in Paris in 1971 were marred by personal tragedy immediately before their opening, and his response to these events is unflinchingly raw. So this is a thoughtful and important show, well worth a visit. On until 19 January 2025.

The reconfigured gallery is a great improvement on the old, with an impressively imposing entrance and spacious foyer rather than the pokey side-door to the National Gallery.

I was down in London to see Dylan at the Royal Albert Hall, so I decided to try to take in a few shows. In Dundee there's the choice of a Desperate Dan exhibition or the pub (I jest...just about).

Anyway, among the delights, was the visit to the Francis Bacon show. I was overwhelmed by the start of the show, particularly the images showing an open mouth which I think he got from an image in 'Battleship Potemkin' - it was chilling and riveting at the same time. Among the pieces which thrilled me was one based on a painting by Van Gogh with the painter seen walking through a field, weighed down by his artist sac. I returned to the painting a number of times - I had never seen it before, but it may be my favourite painting that I have seen in many years. I didn't know much about Bacon beforehand, apart from the frightening images themselves, but felt the show gave me a wider knowledge of him. One thing that fascinated me was how photogenic he appeared to be and how photographers tried to catch his image. I looked out his death mask in the Gallery's death mask section - creepy. Great show. Hadn't been to the National Portrait Gallery in many years - loved the visit.
I also got to the Courtauld Gallery for the first time ever, and saw 'Monet in London'. Wonderful colours - such moving representation of the London fogs in the first years of the twentieth century. I also loved the Courtauld itself - what a collection...for me it was particularly great to see Manet's 'A Bar in the Folies Bergere' at close quarters. In reality, I went to too many things, and have now come home for a rest.

[Ian Thumwood]

Everytime I see this thread, I am reminded of the Wealdstone Warrior.



Do you want some.......?

[Belgrove]

A word that could combine Vincent Van Gogh’s Provençal style and mental state is ‘vibration’, encapsulating the dynamic, ecstatic quality of the paintings that channel and depict his heightened perturbation. The images shimmer and shake. To mark its 200th birthday, the National Gallery has put on its first show of his works ‘Van Gogh Poets and Lovers’ that covers that two year period up to his suicide that were made during his time in Provence. And what a show it is.

First, to give huge credit to its curating, and the superb catalogue, with its learned essays. There is no tongue-clicking, finger-wagging censoriousness, so fashionable at the ‘other place’, that reproves Van Gogh’s use of prostitutes, or his early days as Protestant lay preacher (with all those nasty links with slavery); rather, the information gives the painting’s title, the year of its making and its owner, we are left to make up our own minds as to what the picture is about. How refreshing, how adult.

But the thing is the works themselves, which seem to erupt from their frames in a riot of vibrant colour. Those colours have undoubtedly changed over the years - have you ever seen oranges and lemons that colour - would you be tempted to eat them? What is noticeable nevertheless is how ‘unrealistic’ the use of colour is, and here the influence of Gauguin is evident (who’s radical stature among artists was established, although not among the art-buying public), even prior to his disastrous stay in Arles. The ‘Portrait of a Peasant’ (one Patience Escalier) has a scrubby white beard flecked with green and a grizzled ruddy face and rheumy red eyes; and yet the complementary use of green and red gives a harmony and vitality to the image. ‘Wheatfield, with Cypresses’ captures and synthesises movement on multiple scales, from the tactile undulations of wheat in a gentle breeze, through the twisting cypresses, the undulations of the distant cumulus-like mountains to the violent contortions of the clouds above them; it’s a glorious painting.

So the show is filled with the colours of summer to gladden the eye in dreary, dark November. On until January.