This was the first week of my blog just as a re-cap cant work out how to put it in as a previous entry!! For all those only wishing to read this weeks please scrole to the last blog entry!
Week One – The Queens Collection/The Conversation Piece Posted on 13:23 on 18 January 2010 by you Edit Delete Private 33 Views
www.royalcollection.org.uk/microsites/theconversationpiece/MicroObject.asp
****************************Disclaimer*******************************
I haven’t written an essay or anything about art in over 5 years so please appreciate the drivel written below for its quaint naivety!
So, I have never been to the Queens Collection before but tip from me to you; go – its £5 entry (£4 for students and oldies) and with that you get free entrance to all the exhibitions they do for a year! This was excellent news for me as they have a FAB one coming up in March entitled something vomit inducing like ‘Victoria and Albert are in Love’, or similar, and it’s a collection of over 400 objects the royal loved ones bought and gave each other throughout the reign, ahhhh how cute. Anyway am defo going and will inform you of my thoughts when I do – LUCKY YOU!!!
Another top tip = The audio guide was very informative (and free!) and it turned out to be a necessity for full appreciation of the exhibition as the number of deaf old bastards in there with the volume pushed up to the max would have ruined any enjoyment for me if I hadn’t been able to drown them out with my own BOOMING head set.
This gallery is well worth visiting for the amusement of going inside Buckingham Palace alone and I also greatly enjoyed the wide selection of royal family related tourist crap in the excellent gift shop.
The exhibition I visited on Saturday was called The Conversation Piece; a beautiful collection of 17th, 18th and 19th century conversation pieces from the Royal Collection including work by artists such as Stubbs, Landseer, Hogarth and Zoffany and was especially great for me who enjoys all things Victorian excessively. The exhib begins with some truly beautiful Flemish pieces demonstrating how the tradition began, spreading in popularity throughout Europe in the following centuries and adapted to suit the changing tastes of era and nationality.
This exhibition, interestingly, was by no means just a collection of pieces in the Royal Collection, but demonstrated how the popularity of early Flemish Conversation pieces purchased by the Royal Family influenced both what paintings they themselves commissioned in following centuries (thus determining the success of the artists they patronised) but also the very nature of Conversation pieces in general. This is best demonstrated in a truly beautiful and elegant group of 3 paintings commissioned from Stubbs which marries the popular taste for horse paintings and conversation pieces at the time thus creating a hybrid of fashionable tastes of the time and creating a somewhat new genre of painting. The exhibition also discusses how the popularity of all things French in the18th and 19th century influenced Conversation pieces and how the genre of Watteau, Fragonard and Chardin was adapted to suit the British market by investing humour and satire in scenes of fashionable life. The supremacy of Rousseau (wanker) is also evident in the use of informal family portraits of young royals skipping amongst lush rural backdrops – yuck.
The use of conversation painting as tool of royal propaganda was also demonstrated well, particularly in the work commissioned by the ever amazing Victoria who, it turns out, was by far the most prolific monarch in the use of intricately engineered public images – presenting herself as the almost divine image of all things mother, wife and angel of the hearth. God she was fucking amazing. Apparently Queen Charlotte, about whom I know fuck all, was also prolific in this sense and commissioned some truly gorgeous group portraits of her, the heir and the spare. One of my favourite self aggrandising pieces from the exhibition was a scene from St James Park/The Mall commissioned by and containing a portrait of the Prince of Wales of the time, some guy called Fred. He, it appears, was keen to distance himself from the court and wished to project an image of himself as ‘man of the people’ therefore, choosing to have himself painted amidst the London mob complete with squatting dog, a woman with her tits out, another pulling up her stockings and a guy in the background pissing against a tree, haha!
All in all well worth a visit.
Please let me know if you have any suggestions for future outing and also if you fancy coming along! xxx
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Friday, 29 January 2010
My first Blog entry
Cant work out how to put in previous entries so just copying my first blog entry here:
Eliza's ONE A WEEK - the weekly cultural exploration of ElizaPosted on 10:28 on 18 January 2010 by you Edit Delete Private 13 Views
Hello all!!!
After a summer of lounging around on Hampstead Heath I have found myself in a cultural rut, becoming unacceptably lazy and almost incapable of getting off my arse and doing anything mind expanding (in a legal sense) and consequently becoming a useless empty human being. I have, therefore, decided to do one cultural thing a week at least in 2010 - woohoo me. For all you arty types I know this probably seems like a bit of a measly amount but hey I work in TV now and right over in West London at that where we all know there is no real culture other than Westfield's, and Zarah's flat. Anyway, to keep up the momentum on this I have decided to do a weekly blog (double woohoo me!) detailing my adventures in this high minded pursuit and also, hopefully, getting a few recommendations from all you high brow intellectuals out there. This is all also due to watching Julie and Julia a few weeks ago - very enjoyable despite Amy Adams and her hair. Please be clear that I AM aware this makes me a twat but I don’t care (!!) and this is for friends only anyway who all know I am a twat but are still my friends - thank you open minded accepting forgiving lovely people xxxxx
P.s. I cant spell for shit I don’t care if you don’t like it don’t read it!
Eliza's ONE A WEEK - the weekly cultural exploration of ElizaPosted on 10:28 on 18 January 2010 by you Edit Delete Private 13 Views
Hello all!!!
After a summer of lounging around on Hampstead Heath I have found myself in a cultural rut, becoming unacceptably lazy and almost incapable of getting off my arse and doing anything mind expanding (in a legal sense) and consequently becoming a useless empty human being. I have, therefore, decided to do one cultural thing a week at least in 2010 - woohoo me. For all you arty types I know this probably seems like a bit of a measly amount but hey I work in TV now and right over in West London at that where we all know there is no real culture other than Westfield's, and Zarah's flat. Anyway, to keep up the momentum on this I have decided to do a weekly blog (double woohoo me!) detailing my adventures in this high minded pursuit and also, hopefully, getting a few recommendations from all you high brow intellectuals out there. This is all also due to watching Julie and Julia a few weeks ago - very enjoyable despite Amy Adams and her hair. Please be clear that I AM aware this makes me a twat but I don’t care (!!) and this is for friends only anyway who all know I am a twat but are still my friends - thank you open minded accepting forgiving lovely people xxxxx
P.s. I cant spell for shit I don’t care if you don’t like it don’t read it!
Monday, 25 January 2010
Week 2: The Sacred Made Real/The National Gallery
Hello faithful readers and happy Monday (!?)
Welcome back to Eliza’s One a Week; the Cultural Exploration of Eliza – Week 2. Firstly please can I reiterate that no research or art historical knowledge goes into these entries– for example I’m now pretty sure that the exhibition I went to last week was just 18th and 19th century paintings and not 17th, 18th and 19th centuries as I stated at the time – oops! Luckily seems like none of you noticed - JOKES ON YOU SUCKERS!
For week 2 of the Cultural Exploration of Eliza I decided to visit the current, and soon to be ending National Gallery show ‘The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600 – 1700’. Now, before I go further please let me explain that my knowledge of this period is a big black hole. I believe it was covered in term 2 of the survey lectures in first year Courtauld and for any of you who knew me during that (happy) time you may remember that during that period I was somewhat distracted: that term was a bit of a write-off to say the least. So, please may I strongly state in advance that I went to, and sadly no doubt came away from this exhibition as ignorant as could be. Further more, I wish I had read a bit about what this exhibition was before I went as, sadly, I don’t think I would have bothered to spend £12 (including £3 for the not great audio guide) on it if I had known!
So, to begin; ooh, how lovely, thought I, a nice exhibition full of pretty Velasquezs and Francisco de Zurbaráns and no doubt some very lovely sculptures from the period, ooh I canny wait. Huh!! Imagine my shock and consternation when I entered the dingy basement of the National Gallery to find myself in some kind of warped Madame Tussauds of death; a mix of kitsch theme park from the 1970s called something like ‘Lancashire World’ and a creepy haunted toy shop of hell.
It all seemed ok to begin with, more than ok as when I initially entered before me was one of my all time favorite paintings: The Vision of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, also known as
‘The Miracle of the Lactation’ by Alonso Cano. Please see below. I heartily recommend doing so as it’s hilarious.
http://therule.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/miraculous-lactation-of-st-bernard-1302.jpg
Briefly; this is an image of St Bernard praying before a polychrome (multi-coloured to all you hoodlums out there) statue of the Virgin Mary. As he was such a good monk said statue comes to life and shoots a big old stream of milk from the holy nipples right into his mouth, oh lucky him! Funnily enough, this is not intended just to freak out viewers but demonstrates the bodily, palpable nourishment provided by the mother of god to her worshippers, apparently. It also demonstrates an interesting dichotomy upon which the whole exhibition was based; namely that during this period strict guild systems controlled the production of arts and crafts in Spain, no great surprise there. Polychrome religious sculptures were, it seems, incredibly popular during this time and it was decreed that only sculptors would carve the statues (out of wood) whilst painters were the ones who must colour them in. Because of this many painters trained in sculpture work shops to learn the technique, including Velasquez. This has lead many, including it seems the curator of this exhibition, to argue that this close collaboration of painter and sculptor lead to major breakthroughs in painting during this period, namely the development of realism and the lending of sculptural three-dimensionality to the painted surface. If I knew more about this I would argue the (surely) massive tenuousness of this claim, luckily I don’t but in short: really??? Michelangelo??? Hmm.
As amusing as St Bernard is it’s about as far as I go in terms of appreciating the creepier strands of Catholicism in art - little did I realise this was a portent of the freaky shit soon to come. On turning my back on the thirst quenched St Bernard I beheld a severed head, of John the Baptist, in a glass box. In the next room life sized full length, dressed, statues of various monks, saints and other historical religious figures bore down at me from the corners of the room brandishing crosses and looking really fucking pissed off. Later there were similar images of Christ in various stages of death. No offense but I have seriously never seen such a collection of hideous lumps of wood in my entire life. It was totally freakish and sick. The audio guide explained the significance of these as inspiring worship and humility etc through the shocking images which viewer/worshipper could relate to in a physical sense, but fucking hell. One, which I will attempt to attach an image of, was a torso and head of Christ literally COVERED in blood with glazed eyes made out of glass and finger nails made out of horn etc, It was vomit inducing – please see image below.
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/6/9/1244541882672/Sacred-Made-Real-Christ-a-016.jpg
There were a few parts of the exhibition where the curator successfully demonstrated this dichotomy between painting and sculpture such as in the room dedicated to Zurbarán where 2 beautiful paintings by him were exhibited (see below) and shown next to a sculpture by Pedro de Mena; Saint Francis standing in Ecstasy, which was based on one of the paintings. This reminded me of the freaky wax dolls used to exhibit the latest Paris fashions back in the day which you can see at the V&A and funnily enough back in the 19th century when both paintings and sculpture found huge fame the V&A tried to buy a copy of this statue. Mini-monk is possibly the weirdest part of the exhibition but I can see why these paintings found such popularity during the 19th century as they really are very beautiful~;
http://images.suite101.com/1326897_com_stfrancisi.jpg
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4mQ7lXgX39_FEbzFNTCJWxxpguWUKDdwZNo6xVs9eSPhSqB2wQwnY1TAtxWaio_XR_ikoCWlEbPSiLyDKyBzIBDacGQAu6pgERm5H-Pbq-WdZLZto4YCI-aSbtYgunRfWpKtyrLRzVcI/s400/240_450_zurbaran-francois.jpg
Anyway that’s me gone on plenty long enough so I will wrap it up here but basically this exhibition gave me to heebie-jeebies and would NOT recommend taking children. I guess it’s good that sculptures which was massively popular at the time should be given the attention they’re due but frankly I think a whole show at the National Gallery may have been over-egging it a bit because they really were absolutely disgusting. There were a few lovely paintings but by no means enough to make up for that collection of dusty tat. Back to some nice pretty Victorian stuff next week if possible.
Welcome back to Eliza’s One a Week; the Cultural Exploration of Eliza – Week 2. Firstly please can I reiterate that no research or art historical knowledge goes into these entries– for example I’m now pretty sure that the exhibition I went to last week was just 18th and 19th century paintings and not 17th, 18th and 19th centuries as I stated at the time – oops! Luckily seems like none of you noticed - JOKES ON YOU SUCKERS!
For week 2 of the Cultural Exploration of Eliza I decided to visit the current, and soon to be ending National Gallery show ‘The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600 – 1700’. Now, before I go further please let me explain that my knowledge of this period is a big black hole. I believe it was covered in term 2 of the survey lectures in first year Courtauld and for any of you who knew me during that (happy) time you may remember that during that period I was somewhat distracted: that term was a bit of a write-off to say the least. So, please may I strongly state in advance that I went to, and sadly no doubt came away from this exhibition as ignorant as could be. Further more, I wish I had read a bit about what this exhibition was before I went as, sadly, I don’t think I would have bothered to spend £12 (including £3 for the not great audio guide) on it if I had known!
So, to begin; ooh, how lovely, thought I, a nice exhibition full of pretty Velasquezs and Francisco de Zurbaráns and no doubt some very lovely sculptures from the period, ooh I canny wait. Huh!! Imagine my shock and consternation when I entered the dingy basement of the National Gallery to find myself in some kind of warped Madame Tussauds of death; a mix of kitsch theme park from the 1970s called something like ‘Lancashire World’ and a creepy haunted toy shop of hell.
It all seemed ok to begin with, more than ok as when I initially entered before me was one of my all time favorite paintings: The Vision of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, also known as
‘The Miracle of the Lactation’ by Alonso Cano. Please see below. I heartily recommend doing so as it’s hilarious.
http://therule.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/miraculous-lactation-of-st-bernard-1302.jpg
Briefly; this is an image of St Bernard praying before a polychrome (multi-coloured to all you hoodlums out there) statue of the Virgin Mary. As he was such a good monk said statue comes to life and shoots a big old stream of milk from the holy nipples right into his mouth, oh lucky him! Funnily enough, this is not intended just to freak out viewers but demonstrates the bodily, palpable nourishment provided by the mother of god to her worshippers, apparently. It also demonstrates an interesting dichotomy upon which the whole exhibition was based; namely that during this period strict guild systems controlled the production of arts and crafts in Spain, no great surprise there. Polychrome religious sculptures were, it seems, incredibly popular during this time and it was decreed that only sculptors would carve the statues (out of wood) whilst painters were the ones who must colour them in. Because of this many painters trained in sculpture work shops to learn the technique, including Velasquez. This has lead many, including it seems the curator of this exhibition, to argue that this close collaboration of painter and sculptor lead to major breakthroughs in painting during this period, namely the development of realism and the lending of sculptural three-dimensionality to the painted surface. If I knew more about this I would argue the (surely) massive tenuousness of this claim, luckily I don’t but in short: really??? Michelangelo??? Hmm.
As amusing as St Bernard is it’s about as far as I go in terms of appreciating the creepier strands of Catholicism in art - little did I realise this was a portent of the freaky shit soon to come. On turning my back on the thirst quenched St Bernard I beheld a severed head, of John the Baptist, in a glass box. In the next room life sized full length, dressed, statues of various monks, saints and other historical religious figures bore down at me from the corners of the room brandishing crosses and looking really fucking pissed off. Later there were similar images of Christ in various stages of death. No offense but I have seriously never seen such a collection of hideous lumps of wood in my entire life. It was totally freakish and sick. The audio guide explained the significance of these as inspiring worship and humility etc through the shocking images which viewer/worshipper could relate to in a physical sense, but fucking hell. One, which I will attempt to attach an image of, was a torso and head of Christ literally COVERED in blood with glazed eyes made out of glass and finger nails made out of horn etc, It was vomit inducing – please see image below.
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/6/9/1244541882672/Sacred-Made-Real-Christ-a-016.jpg
There were a few parts of the exhibition where the curator successfully demonstrated this dichotomy between painting and sculpture such as in the room dedicated to Zurbarán where 2 beautiful paintings by him were exhibited (see below) and shown next to a sculpture by Pedro de Mena; Saint Francis standing in Ecstasy, which was based on one of the paintings. This reminded me of the freaky wax dolls used to exhibit the latest Paris fashions back in the day which you can see at the V&A and funnily enough back in the 19th century when both paintings and sculpture found huge fame the V&A tried to buy a copy of this statue. Mini-monk is possibly the weirdest part of the exhibition but I can see why these paintings found such popularity during the 19th century as they really are very beautiful~;
http://images.suite101.com/1326897_com_stfrancisi.jpg
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4mQ7lXgX39_FEbzFNTCJWxxpguWUKDdwZNo6xVs9eSPhSqB2wQwnY1TAtxWaio_XR_ikoCWlEbPSiLyDKyBzIBDacGQAu6pgERm5H-Pbq-WdZLZto4YCI-aSbtYgunRfWpKtyrLRzVcI/s400/240_450_zurbaran-francois.jpg
Anyway that’s me gone on plenty long enough so I will wrap it up here but basically this exhibition gave me to heebie-jeebies and would NOT recommend taking children. I guess it’s good that sculptures which was massively popular at the time should be given the attention they’re due but frankly I think a whole show at the National Gallery may have been over-egging it a bit because they really were absolutely disgusting. There were a few lovely paintings but by no means enough to make up for that collection of dusty tat. Back to some nice pretty Victorian stuff next week if possible.
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