Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Monday, 22 February 2010
Week 6: The Imperial War Museum/Hall of Remembrance
Apologies all for the lateness of my blog this week all go go go etc. Before I say anything culture based please spread the word that I am currently looking for new flatmates for my delightful north London abode – rent is cheap and we are cheerful so please let me know if you are looking/know of anyone who is. Right, that out of the way let the cultural recounting begin.
For this weeks blog I was lucky enough to be accompanied by the eminent art historical PhD to be who we will henceforth refer to as ‘Sam’. Sam has been writing his gazillion word atlas of all things clever for quite a while now but despite our close relationship his opinion on my mental prowess is clearly pretty lowly and he has never really bothered to tell me what he is actually writing about. I know it related to domestic interiors in Renaissance Italy and also that this somehow links in with The Battle of San Romano by Uccello but I don’t know how. I am aware this makes me a bad friend. Now, PhD Sam’s opinion of my intellect is indeed so bad I am requested to include a disclaimer that anything I henceforth recount in this blog are not necessarily the thoughts, ideas or opinions expressed by PhD Sam.
ANYWAY, PhD Sam needed to go the The Imperial War Museum this weekend to see some paintings related to his ongoing studies so I accompanied him and I am very glad I did to. I haven’t been to the Imperial War Museum since I was a kid with my dad and other than the fact that it was somewhere in London near the river I didn’t even have a clue where it was. Turns out it’s by Lambeth North. I know they have had all sorts of excellent looking exhibitions that I haven’t been to but I never realised how great their permanent collection was as well. The last WET Sunday of half term may not have been the wisest time to go but frankly I can put up with screaming hoards of marauding children more than I can pretentious hoards of wankey art types so all good there. I think PhD Sam was less impressed though.
Now, a brief overview of why they have this fabulous collection; Basically, during the First World War the government actively commissioned a lot of famous and less famous artists to record various war experiences. These images were used not only as propaganda but also compiled into small books accompanied by essays and distributed in order to maintain public interest in art throughout the war. In the Second World War it was Kenneth Clarke the then director of the National Gallery who re-established this practice and in some form or another it carries on to this day. After the First World War a scheme was formed to create a Hall of Remembrance and artists such as John Singer Sergeant, Henry Lamb, Stanley Spencer, John Nash and Percy Wyndham Lewis were commissioned to create monumental paintings to decorate this hall. Due to lack of funds it was never built and the works were instead moved to the Imperial War Museum where they display them in rotation.
The brief the chosen artists were given was to create a traditional sized History painting detailing various aspects of the war effort but using Uccello’s Battle of San Romano as a jumping off point. See below link for an image of this:
http://www.wga.hu/art/u/uccello/4battle/1battle.jpg
How AMAZING is that?! I LOVE LOVE LOVE this painting, it’s probably my 2nd favourite in the whole National Gallery but what I didn’t know until PhD Sam told me was just how influential it has been over the years. I know it is one of the first Renaissance images to use types of perspective etc but what I didn’t know was the influence it had on Cubism and Vorticism (British Futurism). In fact PhD Sam even referred to it as ‘proto-cubism’ - amazing! Now, obviously Vorticism and Futurism were massively important artistic movements during the period encompassing the First World War and influenced all the artists commissioned in various ways. It’s, therefore, interesting to ponder over why the powers that be would choose this particular painting as an inspiration. Did they chose it purely because of its success as a War painting, in particular apparently its size, or did they choose it because they knew it had already provided inspiration to this contemporary art crowd and were aware that their artistic style was in itself a response to Uccello? I don’t know, but if it was just a coincidence it was certainly a happy one.
Either way it’s really fascinating to see different artists responding to the same point of inspiration and also recounting their own personal experiences of war. For example; Sergeant witnessed a group of soldiers, recently gassed and therefore temporarily blinded, relying on medical orderlies to lead them back to the base camp or field hospital or whatever it was called. This is a massive painting reminiscent of classical friezes as well as, perhaps, artists such as Breton who represented peasants and workers on huge canvasses as heroic and strong figures like classical symbols of potency, strength and truth:
http://madamepickwickartblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/sargent11.jpg
Henry Lamb: Irish Troops in the Judaean Hills Surprised By A Turkish Bombardment is also both beautiful and fascinating. This time Lamb has taken Uccello’s breakthrough use of perspective as his inspiration and creates an image painted from the perspective of the shells that are raining down on the heads of wounded soldiers. The blocky, stylised technique is also very like the Uccello. Amazing image:
http://www.iwm.org.uk/upload/package/95/images/IWM%20ART%202746%20Irish%20Troops%20420.jpg
Nash is the one who, according to PhD Sam, sticks most to the brief in terms of size. He is the only artist to use the exact proportions of Uccello’s painting and has clearly used some of the composition and perspectival tricks of his work. You can clearly see how he has used the angles of the staffs from the original and mirrored them with the lines of the burnt out trees and sun streaming through cloudy, murky sky. It is here that we can also see mostly clearly the influence of Uccello on Cubism:
http://kenwilsonelt.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/menin-road.jpg
There are many other works in the exhibition which were commissioned during the wars but not specifically for the Hall of Remembrance. I can’t imagine Vorticism displayed better anywhere else or demonstrating more clearly why this style so perfectly captured the crazy barbarism of modernity. Works by artists such as Nevinson were a response to the machine age, an age ripped apart by war and where mankind is dehumanised by machines, in short perfect for subjects of war:
http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/lib/tmp/cmsfiles/Image/Commissions/nevinson_a_star_shell_big.jpg
Just quickly I was very taken by the work of Michael Sandle who produces prints of skeletons driving war like machinery which reminded me of the Mexican prints I saw a few weeks ago at the BM.
http://www.gagaprinthouse.com/images/medium/sandle_driveri_MED.jpg
Lastly, some of the pieces produced during the Second World war are equally fascinating such as the work of Frank Dobson who recorded he work of the BBC during the war:
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/images/IWM/small/0374-19.jpg&imgrefurl=http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/results.php%3Fpage%3D2%26cmd%3Dadvsearch%26mode%3Dboolean%26words%3Dimperial%2Bwar%2Bmuseum%2Bconcise%2Bart%2Bcollection%26field%3Dall%26oper%3Dor%26idSearch%3Dboolean%26IWM%3D1%26rpp%3D200&usg=__p9qpwCd105mS94ZN6n-ak0SPfYs=&h=66&w=90&sz=3&hl=en&start=2&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=cI5Kmx9rsaSV2M:&tbnh=57&tbnw=78&prev=/images%3Fq%3DAn%2BUnderground%2BRoom%2Bin%2Bthe%2BBBC%2BBuilding%2Bdobson%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26tbs%3Disch:1
That’s all I have taken ages writing this and it sucks oh well but go to the exhibition it’s great and free!!!
For this weeks blog I was lucky enough to be accompanied by the eminent art historical PhD to be who we will henceforth refer to as ‘Sam’. Sam has been writing his gazillion word atlas of all things clever for quite a while now but despite our close relationship his opinion on my mental prowess is clearly pretty lowly and he has never really bothered to tell me what he is actually writing about. I know it related to domestic interiors in Renaissance Italy and also that this somehow links in with The Battle of San Romano by Uccello but I don’t know how. I am aware this makes me a bad friend. Now, PhD Sam’s opinion of my intellect is indeed so bad I am requested to include a disclaimer that anything I henceforth recount in this blog are not necessarily the thoughts, ideas or opinions expressed by PhD Sam.
ANYWAY, PhD Sam needed to go the The Imperial War Museum this weekend to see some paintings related to his ongoing studies so I accompanied him and I am very glad I did to. I haven’t been to the Imperial War Museum since I was a kid with my dad and other than the fact that it was somewhere in London near the river I didn’t even have a clue where it was. Turns out it’s by Lambeth North. I know they have had all sorts of excellent looking exhibitions that I haven’t been to but I never realised how great their permanent collection was as well. The last WET Sunday of half term may not have been the wisest time to go but frankly I can put up with screaming hoards of marauding children more than I can pretentious hoards of wankey art types so all good there. I think PhD Sam was less impressed though.
Now, a brief overview of why they have this fabulous collection; Basically, during the First World War the government actively commissioned a lot of famous and less famous artists to record various war experiences. These images were used not only as propaganda but also compiled into small books accompanied by essays and distributed in order to maintain public interest in art throughout the war. In the Second World War it was Kenneth Clarke the then director of the National Gallery who re-established this practice and in some form or another it carries on to this day. After the First World War a scheme was formed to create a Hall of Remembrance and artists such as John Singer Sergeant, Henry Lamb, Stanley Spencer, John Nash and Percy Wyndham Lewis were commissioned to create monumental paintings to decorate this hall. Due to lack of funds it was never built and the works were instead moved to the Imperial War Museum where they display them in rotation.
The brief the chosen artists were given was to create a traditional sized History painting detailing various aspects of the war effort but using Uccello’s Battle of San Romano as a jumping off point. See below link for an image of this:
http://www.wga.hu/art/u/uccello/4battle/1battle.jpg
How AMAZING is that?! I LOVE LOVE LOVE this painting, it’s probably my 2nd favourite in the whole National Gallery but what I didn’t know until PhD Sam told me was just how influential it has been over the years. I know it is one of the first Renaissance images to use types of perspective etc but what I didn’t know was the influence it had on Cubism and Vorticism (British Futurism). In fact PhD Sam even referred to it as ‘proto-cubism’ - amazing! Now, obviously Vorticism and Futurism were massively important artistic movements during the period encompassing the First World War and influenced all the artists commissioned in various ways. It’s, therefore, interesting to ponder over why the powers that be would choose this particular painting as an inspiration. Did they chose it purely because of its success as a War painting, in particular apparently its size, or did they choose it because they knew it had already provided inspiration to this contemporary art crowd and were aware that their artistic style was in itself a response to Uccello? I don’t know, but if it was just a coincidence it was certainly a happy one.
Either way it’s really fascinating to see different artists responding to the same point of inspiration and also recounting their own personal experiences of war. For example; Sergeant witnessed a group of soldiers, recently gassed and therefore temporarily blinded, relying on medical orderlies to lead them back to the base camp or field hospital or whatever it was called. This is a massive painting reminiscent of classical friezes as well as, perhaps, artists such as Breton who represented peasants and workers on huge canvasses as heroic and strong figures like classical symbols of potency, strength and truth:
http://madamepickwickartblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/sargent11.jpg
Henry Lamb: Irish Troops in the Judaean Hills Surprised By A Turkish Bombardment is also both beautiful and fascinating. This time Lamb has taken Uccello’s breakthrough use of perspective as his inspiration and creates an image painted from the perspective of the shells that are raining down on the heads of wounded soldiers. The blocky, stylised technique is also very like the Uccello. Amazing image:
http://www.iwm.org.uk/upload/package/95/images/IWM%20ART%202746%20Irish%20Troops%20420.jpg
Nash is the one who, according to PhD Sam, sticks most to the brief in terms of size. He is the only artist to use the exact proportions of Uccello’s painting and has clearly used some of the composition and perspectival tricks of his work. You can clearly see how he has used the angles of the staffs from the original and mirrored them with the lines of the burnt out trees and sun streaming through cloudy, murky sky. It is here that we can also see mostly clearly the influence of Uccello on Cubism:
http://kenwilsonelt.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/menin-road.jpg
There are many other works in the exhibition which were commissioned during the wars but not specifically for the Hall of Remembrance. I can’t imagine Vorticism displayed better anywhere else or demonstrating more clearly why this style so perfectly captured the crazy barbarism of modernity. Works by artists such as Nevinson were a response to the machine age, an age ripped apart by war and where mankind is dehumanised by machines, in short perfect for subjects of war:
http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/lib/tmp/cmsfiles/Image/Commissions/nevinson_a_star_shell_big.jpg
Just quickly I was very taken by the work of Michael Sandle who produces prints of skeletons driving war like machinery which reminded me of the Mexican prints I saw a few weeks ago at the BM.
http://www.gagaprinthouse.com/images/medium/sandle_driveri_MED.jpg
Lastly, some of the pieces produced during the Second World war are equally fascinating such as the work of Frank Dobson who recorded he work of the BBC during the war:
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/images/IWM/small/0374-19.jpg&imgrefurl=http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/results.php%3Fpage%3D2%26cmd%3Dadvsearch%26mode%3Dboolean%26words%3Dimperial%2Bwar%2Bmuseum%2Bconcise%2Bart%2Bcollection%26field%3Dall%26oper%3Dor%26idSearch%3Dboolean%26IWM%3D1%26rpp%3D200&usg=__p9qpwCd105mS94ZN6n-ak0SPfYs=&h=66&w=90&sz=3&hl=en&start=2&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=cI5Kmx9rsaSV2M:&tbnh=57&tbnw=78&prev=/images%3Fq%3DAn%2BUnderground%2BRoom%2Bin%2Bthe%2BBBC%2BBuilding%2Bdobson%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26tbs%3Disch:1
That’s all I have taken ages writing this and it sucks oh well but go to the exhibition it’s great and free!!!
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