National Gallery – the Basement
There’s a “new” room downstairs in the NG, open to the public on Wednesdays and Sundays; not new at all, of course, but newly opened up. You go through to room 15 where the Turners and Claudes are, and downstairs from there.
It’s like the “B” List; everywhere you look, you see something that looks like a copy of a famous painting elsewhere (sometimes upstairs). My guess is that they are not copies – they’re not THAT similar – but maybe done from some sort of template that was going the rounds.
There’s so much down there that it will take a couple of blogs at least – but here are some highlights:
The Workshop of the Master of the Female Half – Lengths; St. John on Patmos. Lovely little painting, I thought with shades of Giorgione.
A big, cartoon-y Signorelli, The Circumcision. Who is the evil -looking character in the headcloth? Dodgy eyes, if ever I saw them. Unfortunately, can’t find a good repro on line, so you will have to visit to see what I mean.
Zanobi Strozzi’s Annunciation. Like Lippi maybe, but with an astonishing Expressionist floor.
Fra Angelico, St. Romulus – another vivid little beauty.
Then, there are the lookalikes:
Mano d’Oggiono, Virgin and Child – that fat baby leaning forwards, arms outstretched, reminded me of the Christ in the Virgin of the Rocks, the one with the unhealthy looking baby making the blessing gesture.
Gio. di Nicola, an Anthony Abbot, just like the frowning Masaccio? one upstairs.
A St Catharine with a face just like Leonardo’s St. Anne.
Venusti, a “follower of Michelangelo”; a small Holy Family with a dark green background that reminded me of that fabulous Raphael with John the Baptist and a pope…
Then, there is Clays, a Dutch painter who does glassy green, calm seas, in the way you look to Cuyp for cows.
Loads more; its a great visit.
Tate St.Ives -Modern Art and St.Ives, International Exchanges 1915 – 1965
First, there are a lot of “old friends” here, if you go to the London Tates much:
Franz Kline’s Meryon, the giant black bridgehead;
Gorky’s Waterfall;
Helion’s colourful little abstract;
Winifred Nicholson’s “yellow patch” abstract from Tate B;
Lanyon’s Thermal and Wreck;
Hockney’s Third Love Painting;
The big, blue Clyfford Still – you know the one;
The Rothko, that yellow-green “window” one;
Ben Nicholson, Gabo, Moholy- Nagy, Van Doesberg, Margaret Mellis, all have geometrical pieces; and there’s an El Lissitsky, which is interesting, in that it is the only painting or construction of this lot that contains an illusory (desk-shaped) 3D image. Some of the others have depth, but it is created by layering.
Here are a few of the other treasures on view – again, I’ll need another blog to do justice to the exhibition;
de Kooning, Zot – a mini “Excavation”.
Alan Davie, Bird Singing; little, dirty – fantastic.
Roger Hilton, Grey day by the Sea. So simple…couldn’t find a good one online.
William Scott, Harbour.
Serge Poliakoff, Abstract Composition; Blue, brown, red, yellow.
And of course the Lanyon paintings…
Wreck, Peter Lanyon
Anyway, more on St.Ives and NG next blog.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Struck again by Orwell’s concept of Doublethink, the ability to believe two absolutely contradictory things simultaneously – it seems to me that this is extremely common, perhaps even universal. I know that I’m capable of it, and even comfortable with it. Good example in the paper today, Richard Dawkins talking about people who dismiss the idea of Father Christmas as nonsense, but profess a belief in a supernatural god figure…
Cornish Cave Paintings, Blackpaint
6th June 2014