Van Gogh and Britain – Tate Britain until 11th August
Starry Night, Sunflowers, Convicts and some famous self portraits are all here in this show, but are so well-known and frequently reproduced that I though I’d show only some of the other art on show here, either that influenced him or shows his influence. Gustave Dore is a prominent one – others below:
Bomberg
Curious that Bomberg was an avant-gardist, almost abstractionist, early in his career and later, went back to landscapes reminiscent of VG – an avant-gardist of an earlier generation. Although I have to sai I can’t see much Van Gogh in this particular selection. Actually, it’s not curious at all, is it? Art history is full of examples of painters who started radical and went conservative later.
Richard Parkes Bonnington
Actually looks more like a Bourdin than a Van Gogh, I think, if it had been a beach scene that is; Bonington was only 26 when he died of TB. Staggering talent; see more of his works in the permanent Wallace Collection.
De Nittis
As much Manet as VG, I think.
Harold Gilman
Gilman’s take on that VG with the psychedelic bark. Either he’d been at the absinthe that day, or some secretion in his brain was producing that “creeping lines” illusion you get on LSD, as I am led to believe…
William Nicholson
Wonky looking base, but lovely flowers AND pot…
Spencer Gore
I love his violet shadows and the chiselled edges of the roofs and gables; a roomful of these might be a little insipid, though…
Unknown – to me anyway, as I didn’t get the name.
Clear VG influence in the sky and trees – as well as a touch of Hockney’s Yorkshire Dales?
Good exhibition, especially the flower pictures; not altogether convinced by the attribution of influence, though.
Rembrandt, “Thinking on Paper” at the British Museum Print Room until 4th
One big advantage over the Van Gogh – the VG costs £22.00, This is free. below, some examples:
The Three Crosses, 1653
Drypoint and burin on vellum.
Reclining Nude, 1658
Copper Plate.
Young Woman Sleeping, 1654
Brush and brown wash.
Self Portrait Leaning on a Stone Wall, 1639
Etching with drawing in black chalk.
Very different, aren’t they? On the evidence of these four examples, even allowing for the different techniques, you wouldn’t know they were by the same artist.
Symbolist Prints – Print Room with the Rembrandts until 18th July
A visual accompaniment to the morally unsound, absinthe- and drug-suffused, sexually advanced world of 19th century French poets, with their drunken boats, evil flowers and lobsters on leads – have I got that right? – a series of atmospheric and beautifully executed prints, an example by Redon below:
Odilon Redon
The Beekeeper, dir. Theo Angelopoulos, 1986
I’ve just watched Angelopoulos’ sad and funny film again in honour of International Bee Day today. The story line, which involves an ageing Marcello Mastroianni on a road trip across Greece in search of spring pollens for his crates of bees would probably attract the displeasure of critics if made now, since it involves – eventually – a sexual encounter with a much younger woman (although the encounter is sort of consensual). Funny? Unintentionally, I think – poor old Marcello is made to fling himself bear-like onto surprised and displeased women (one of them his estranged wife) and after a few seconds of desultory struggle, to give up and sink into a torpor. It’s the contrast between the suave Marcello of “Dolce Vita” and the shabby hulk of the beekeeper…
The film ends with what I thought was a unique “suicide by bees”; the Wikipedia entry, however, tells me that the beekeeper is not dying, but actually signalling in Morse code with fingers I took to be drumming in agony.
An old one of mine to finish –
Skinningrove
Blackpaint
20/05/19
Tags: Angelopoulos, Bomberg, Bonington, Marcello Mastroiannl, Redon, Rembrandt, Spencer Gore, The Beekeeper, Van Gogh, William Nicholson
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