Wednesday, 10 March 2010
JERUSALEM
Hello few followers am back to bore you with more of my foreign explorations. Today I finally made it to Jerusalem and bloody hell it was an hardcore and not overly enjoyable experience. I could rant for about 4 hours about, mainly, how truly shit my Frommer's guide book is (although have no right as got it basically half price and thanks to the fragrant emily) but don't worry I wont. I will instead concentrate on the things I DID manage to see despite it's useless WRONG information. I DID see the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, I DID see the wailing/western wall. I DID see lots and lots and then more lots of bizarres, I DID see the Mount of Olives and the amazing city walls. I DID walk around in circles a lot in the blazing heat. It was very strange to come 50 minutes down the road (fabulous scenery on the way) from what feels like a totally European city to then suddenly be on holiday in the Exotic East. I know I should have been excited about following the stages of the Cross etc but I really couldn't make myself care about where Christ fell over and found myself instead, worryingly, getting all excited about treading the same streets that Holeman Hunt and (I'm assuming) people like Byron etc wandered. It was just so damn Victorian exoitca. I know this is really really bad. My great dissapointment is that, geting there after 11, I decided to g to the Temple Mount later in the day as my piece of crap guide book told me it closed between 11:30 and 1:30 and then was open again until 3. HOWEVER, when I got there at 1:30 it was in fact closed for the rest of the day. This means I missed one of the mos historically rich sites on earth due to my shit shit shit guide book. It was only printed about 8 months ago not that much could have changed surely??? OH WELL. So I missed the Dome of the Rock, Solomon's Stables and the Al Aqsa Mosque and loads of other important great things that who the hell knows when i will have the opportunity to see again, because believe me after the journey and general experience i had today i really can't face going back again this week. oh well. Luckily I did have the good fortune of doing the walk of the old ramparts which you can do as an almost complete circle round the old city (well as long as you don't mind scaling a 5 foot fence at one point) and it was really really great. Not only was it a wonderful break from the sweltering and claustrophobic atmosphere in the streets, being cool and calm and empty, but also it provided amazing views not only across Jerusalem but also onto the Mount of Olives, the surrounding countryside and also, thank god, the dome and upper parts of the Dome of the Rock which is fab and covered with gold and gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous tiles. I love tiles. From there the whole place seemed totally magical and holy and ancient which is exactly how you want it to feel. It really was amazing actually and exactly the way you would visualise it all steep steep mountains hazy in the heat with the sound of Muslim prayers being pumped out and the sense that important shit has been happening here for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. The whole day did make me feel depressed as hell about how little I know about either Religion or History though. Ho Hum. Anyway, nothing but bagels when going round as so hot but schnitzel this eve which was nice. xxx
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Tel AvIv Day 2
Hello lovely people going to make this v quick as is v late and am going to attempt to get up at a reasonable hour tomorrow and go to Jerusalem having failed miserably again today to get up before noon. In fairness to me we were up til gone 4 last night dancing round in a gay club so hardly my fault. We also had a delicious Georgian meal including lots of yummy aubergine based snacks, breaded calamari stuffed with mushrooms and very yum meat pilaf. Installment 2 of Hebrew Hotties though is that surprisingly, and very much in opposition to London trends; gay men in Irael are seemingly not as good looking as straight ones! Who knew?!
So, today wasn't as sunny or hot as yesterday so spent the first hour or so (ie 1pm oops) n Carmel market supposedly buying people gifts but actually buying myself a nice necklace - fuck all you guys haha. Then i had the nicest lunch ever outside in a cafe with a random old woman who shared the table with me. It was an Iraqi sandwich which was on dark dark bread with fried aubergines, sliced boiled eggs, gherkins and this creamy sauce and it came with a huge chopped salad, which they are obsessed with here (a good thing in my book) and a dish of olives. Yum. They also serve their cold coffees with sugar water which in my head sounds romantic and exotic. Drinking cold coffee also makes me think am Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday which is defo a good thing. Then looked round Yaels gallery which was excellent but alas i don't have the booklet and therefore can't remember any of the artists names. There was some damn good stuff with collage though rach take note. And cool revolving glass things projecting images onto the walls. - sorry yael that's a crap description i know but am knackered. Then after that I went to the Tel Aviv Art Museum/Museum of Art which was ace and had loads of really really beautiful Fauve stuff. I had forgotten totally about the Fauves I must admit and it had totally escaped me how much I LOVE them. Also lots of cubist stuff and general fab post impressionism and oddly this pitch back room filled with all these doll house rooms done up in the interior styles of various eras of history - I enjoyed it but definitely odd.
Major dissapointment is that even though i am on my HOLIDAYS, ABROAD, I couldnt find any of the obligatory transparent bags of really greasy crinkle cut crips that i adore and are the man reason for me having holidays. Oh well. Did have yum dinner with Yael and her lovely fried Liz of Moroccan fish spicy style stew on couscous. Lastly you can smoke in bars here!!! It's illegal but everyone ignores it - fab!!!! Wish me luck getting to Jerusalem tomorrow may just try and get a cab to the bus station but dont have a number?! Miss you Meadway.
So, today wasn't as sunny or hot as yesterday so spent the first hour or so (ie 1pm oops) n Carmel market supposedly buying people gifts but actually buying myself a nice necklace - fuck all you guys haha. Then i had the nicest lunch ever outside in a cafe with a random old woman who shared the table with me. It was an Iraqi sandwich which was on dark dark bread with fried aubergines, sliced boiled eggs, gherkins and this creamy sauce and it came with a huge chopped salad, which they are obsessed with here (a good thing in my book) and a dish of olives. Yum. They also serve their cold coffees with sugar water which in my head sounds romantic and exotic. Drinking cold coffee also makes me think am Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday which is defo a good thing. Then looked round Yaels gallery which was excellent but alas i don't have the booklet and therefore can't remember any of the artists names. There was some damn good stuff with collage though rach take note. And cool revolving glass things projecting images onto the walls. - sorry yael that's a crap description i know but am knackered. Then after that I went to the Tel Aviv Art Museum/Museum of Art which was ace and had loads of really really beautiful Fauve stuff. I had forgotten totally about the Fauves I must admit and it had totally escaped me how much I LOVE them. Also lots of cubist stuff and general fab post impressionism and oddly this pitch back room filled with all these doll house rooms done up in the interior styles of various eras of history - I enjoyed it but definitely odd.
Major dissapointment is that even though i am on my HOLIDAYS, ABROAD, I couldnt find any of the obligatory transparent bags of really greasy crinkle cut crips that i adore and are the man reason for me having holidays. Oh well. Did have yum dinner with Yael and her lovely fried Liz of Moroccan fish spicy style stew on couscous. Lastly you can smoke in bars here!!! It's illegal but everyone ignores it - fab!!!! Wish me luck getting to Jerusalem tomorrow may just try and get a cab to the bus station but dont have a number?! Miss you Meadway.
Monday, 8 March 2010
Tel Aviv Day One
Dear all
I am writing this backwards and it's really sodding confusing. The reason I am writing this backwards is that I am currently sitting at the lovely Yaels computer in very sunny Tel Aviv and everything is in Hebrew! She is off doing arty important things and it took me about half an hour to work out how to type in english rather than hebrew. I am concerned about spell check, aka my best friend so if this is coming to you phonetically that will be the reason why. So here I am in lovely Tel Aviv having survived successfully a 5 hour easyjet flight to get here. My advice to all out there planning on flying here take note: take some sort of sars mask; orthodox jews aren't allowed to use deodorant ad where wool , my god what it will be like on the way home dread to think. However, this is probably made up for by the fact that they were all praying like crazy before we got on the plane AND during the flight so felt very reassured, unless god is Allah in which case was probably not very safe. Hey hoh. Anyway, as I did nothing cultural last week due to last minute holiday preparation hell and obviously laziness i i thought i would do a series of mini blogs outlining all the fab adventures i am having on my hols. So far I can inform you most definitley that they do not use measures here. was very drunk last night and rather hungover this morning so, after waking up a about mid day all i could really manage was to drag myself down to the beach, which by the way is less than 2 minutes away, and lie there eating yummy things and having the occasional paddle. the weather is baking so don't feel guilty in the least i haven't had a holiday since last september and some people never move from the beach all holiday. Also very nice beaches with fine golden sand and lots of people hitting balls back and forth with hard wooden paddles - its very popular here apparently and they do it very aggressively! UMMM the food was gooood as well. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, my guide book does not have a long enough food section BY FAR and i was thus forced to guess my orders, but luckily i eat pretty much everything with gusto anyway. Firstly, the pitta bread here aint like the pita bread at home, Here, rather than a chewy anorexic looking piece of tasteless paper they are thick and fresh and moist and yeasty and delicious. mmm. Totally different kettle of fish. I had them with a yummy dish called Shakshuka which was amazing; it came in a little mini frying pan with a lid and it was basically eggs baked in an incredibly rich tomato and pepper sauce, clearly fresh, which you spooned into the pitta and wolfed down f you were me. Thank god i don't seem to be suffering from my usual holiday loss of appetite completely thing as my god i intend to eat a lot while im here. apparently its also strawberry season and you can buy a punnet the size of your head for abut a pound, surprisingly though the food isn't THAT cheap, although in fairness i have been mostly sticking to the tourist heavy beach cafes, But hey who can resist sipping in the culinary delights of a nation by the sea. Tomorrow do intend to be more active though and wil try and make it t Jerusalem where hopefully i will eat even more delicious treats aubergines and falaffel def high n the agenda. Tel Aviv itself, of what I have seen so far, isn't what expected. t's more run down than I thought it would be but it has a real 'continental' be to it; lots of wide airy tree lined boulevards with out door cafes and the same poster things as they have in Paris haha. I was talking to some guy on the beach who told me Israel is like the middle east but tel aviv is like europe. Who was this man on the beach you might ask? Well that leads me nicely to what will be known as my Hebrew Hotties section because my god the men are good looking here. On average way way way better looking than english men - no offense guys you know i love ya. But FUCK ME there are some good looking men around here, it must be the army thing and also the sun thing as they are totally buff and tanned - not my usual type as such but undeniably Adonis like. If i had a digital camera there would now be lots of pictures of ripe young specimens with captions sch as PHWOAR! My god they know it though. Girls here must get A LOT of action as just being on the beach for 3 hours i made a lot of new friends. I also taught about 5 guys the meaning f the word 'letch' . I am getting quite attached to my fictional boyfriend though he s a mix of most of the guys ive ever gone out with. I suspect he will develop a lot over the coming days. Yael just got home and we are going out with her exiting art crowd to a Georgian restaurant that am very excited about so will sign off here til tomorrow or possibly the day after. Bye
I am writing this backwards and it's really sodding confusing. The reason I am writing this backwards is that I am currently sitting at the lovely Yaels computer in very sunny Tel Aviv and everything is in Hebrew! She is off doing arty important things and it took me about half an hour to work out how to type in english rather than hebrew. I am concerned about spell check, aka my best friend so if this is coming to you phonetically that will be the reason why. So here I am in lovely Tel Aviv having survived successfully a 5 hour easyjet flight to get here. My advice to all out there planning on flying here take note: take some sort of sars mask; orthodox jews aren't allowed to use deodorant ad where wool , my god what it will be like on the way home dread to think. However, this is probably made up for by the fact that they were all praying like crazy before we got on the plane AND during the flight so felt very reassured, unless god is Allah in which case was probably not very safe. Hey hoh. Anyway, as I did nothing cultural last week due to last minute holiday preparation hell and obviously laziness i i thought i would do a series of mini blogs outlining all the fab adventures i am having on my hols. So far I can inform you most definitley that they do not use measures here. was very drunk last night and rather hungover this morning so, after waking up a about mid day all i could really manage was to drag myself down to the beach, which by the way is less than 2 minutes away, and lie there eating yummy things and having the occasional paddle. the weather is baking so don't feel guilty in the least i haven't had a holiday since last september and some people never move from the beach all holiday. Also very nice beaches with fine golden sand and lots of people hitting balls back and forth with hard wooden paddles - its very popular here apparently and they do it very aggressively! UMMM the food was gooood as well. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, my guide book does not have a long enough food section BY FAR and i was thus forced to guess my orders, but luckily i eat pretty much everything with gusto anyway. Firstly, the pitta bread here aint like the pita bread at home, Here, rather than a chewy anorexic looking piece of tasteless paper they are thick and fresh and moist and yeasty and delicious. mmm. Totally different kettle of fish. I had them with a yummy dish called Shakshuka which was amazing; it came in a little mini frying pan with a lid and it was basically eggs baked in an incredibly rich tomato and pepper sauce, clearly fresh, which you spooned into the pitta and wolfed down f you were me. Thank god i don't seem to be suffering from my usual holiday loss of appetite completely thing as my god i intend to eat a lot while im here. apparently its also strawberry season and you can buy a punnet the size of your head for abut a pound, surprisingly though the food isn't THAT cheap, although in fairness i have been mostly sticking to the tourist heavy beach cafes, But hey who can resist sipping in the culinary delights of a nation by the sea. Tomorrow do intend to be more active though and wil try and make it t Jerusalem where hopefully i will eat even more delicious treats aubergines and falaffel def high n the agenda. Tel Aviv itself, of what I have seen so far, isn't what expected. t's more run down than I thought it would be but it has a real 'continental' be to it; lots of wide airy tree lined boulevards with out door cafes and the same poster things as they have in Paris haha. I was talking to some guy on the beach who told me Israel is like the middle east but tel aviv is like europe. Who was this man on the beach you might ask? Well that leads me nicely to what will be known as my Hebrew Hotties section because my god the men are good looking here. On average way way way better looking than english men - no offense guys you know i love ya. But FUCK ME there are some good looking men around here, it must be the army thing and also the sun thing as they are totally buff and tanned - not my usual type as such but undeniably Adonis like. If i had a digital camera there would now be lots of pictures of ripe young specimens with captions sch as PHWOAR! My god they know it though. Girls here must get A LOT of action as just being on the beach for 3 hours i made a lot of new friends. I also taught about 5 guys the meaning f the word 'letch' . I am getting quite attached to my fictional boyfriend though he s a mix of most of the guys ive ever gone out with. I suspect he will develop a lot over the coming days. Yael just got home and we are going out with her exiting art crowd to a Georgian restaurant that am very excited about so will sign off here til tomorrow or possibly the day after. Bye
Monday, 1 March 2010
Week 7: The Elixir of Love/English National Opera
Morning all and what a bright and sunny morning it is – through my office window, grr. Maybe false spring is coming!! This will be the last time for a couple of weeks that I will be writing my blog on a Monday as next week I am jetting off to the holy land for a week. YAY!!! I will still be doing one cultural activity this week so will try and write it up before I go on Sunday – oh lucky lucky people.
So, have a real treat for all my poor readers this week – NOT an exhibition!! I know! Madness! This week I was fortunate enough to be invited by the lovely Andrew and Tom to The Elixir of Love by Donizetti performed by the English National Opera and directed by the august Jonathan Miller, who we saw standing in the foyer before the start!! He really is very hot for an old man. The venue (The Coliseum) has a lot of happy memories for me, especially before it was refurbished to its current sate of extreme Edwardian grandeur. At university, clearly being much more cultural and highbrow than I would ever dare to be now, we use to go all the time as you could get £3 tickets on the day – bargain! Alas it wasn’t quite as cheap as that this time but still excellent value for £16 – if you don’t mind the constriction of blood to your lower legs, but hey who needs toes! Interestingly we, patrons of the Balcony, are now thought to be so lowly we don’t even get the option of hiring the opera glasses they usually have in the back of the seats!! Luckily I had bought my own but in comparison to the Royal Opera House the view at the Coliseum is always fine anyway; the auditorium I think is much shallower so you never feel that far away. The Coliseum, all in all, I find to be a much less stressful and overwhelming experience than the Royal Opera House, you don’t even have to physically fight your way to the bar! It is also just so so beautiful and gilded inside.
Now, despite definite enjoyment I know NOTHING about opera at all. The singing was nice, they could all go very high and very low as necessary. The music was good. That’s about as much as I can say about that I’m afraid. Andrew kindly lent me his copy of the programme so I could have some interesting opera based things to talk about but I couldn’t understand what on earth they were going on about mostly. It was nonetheless interesting to see what I don’t understand – the list seems to be growing daily anyway. It seems opera is discussed academically like art!! Who knew!? I think it wise if I stay clear of this.
There were other articles/essays within the programme which I very much enjoyed, however, including the one discussing the use of love potions/elixirs in art throughout history. Flimsy is a word which sprung to mind. It started off well enough charting the use of the love potion as a device throughout the ages and briefly commenting on which era was particularly fond of using it, such as the 19th century (hurrah), and which weren’t. It then went on to discuss the use of love potions in contemporary arts siting such artistic highs as Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and Batman and Robin. Yes. Quite. Someone was paid for that.
For those of you interested the storyline was as follows: Nemorino is in love with Adina. She isn’t interested as she desires to remain ‘free’. Cocky young sergeant comes to town and attempts to woo her– she, wisely, isn’t interested. Nemorino, having listened to the ‘comical’ (??) story of Tristan and Isolde and their love induced by elixir, decides to accost the local crooked quack Dulcamara and purchases a bottle of what he thinks is love potion and of course is in fact booze. Full of Dutch courage Nemorino’s apparent indifference to Adina causes her to accept the sergeant’s offer of marriage to take revenge on Nemorino, as you do. Much hilarity ensues, obviously. The opera was originally set in 19th century Italy but here the events have been transposed to small town Americana in the 50s. The set was fabulous and obviously inspired by Hopper paintings but, according to the programme, was provided by the New York City Opera and originally created for the Royal Swedish Opera. I don’t know, therefore, whether they were created by Miller and he also directed this production elsewhere or whether Miller just directed and the actual performance was designed by someone else altogether. Oops. The costumes were also excellent and I particularly liked the white silk knee length pencil dress Adina wore in the second half – god the 50s were flattering.
The girl who played Adina is definitely worth mentioning. Obviously as to her vocal prowess I can make no comment but wow she was pretty!! As was the guy who played Nemorino – they were both young and both hot and definitely not fat!! A miracle for romantic leads in opera and definitely made a huge difference in involving the audience, or at least me, in the story.
I have mixed feelings about the ENO performing always in English as frankly it makes us look like ill-educated chav retards but it made a huge different to the enjoyment of the production in this instance. Often I find that even when they are singing in English you still can’t understand most of what they’re saying and usually it doesn’t matter anyway as they are just repeating the same thing over and over and then making annoying fake opera laughs. However, here the libretto (get me and my fancy opera terms) was amazing and in many places genuinely really really funny. Excellent additions for me included the use of the lyric ‘I’m a lover not a fighter’ – AMAZING!!! They also managed, at one point, to sing opera in the manner of Elvis which was hilarious. Almost the entire libretto had been altered to contain 50s vocabulary and all in all worked really really well, I thought! I very much liked listening to the damsel singing to the romantic lead to ‘get over it your crazy’. It was quite an eye opener to how relevant and accessible classical opera can/could be to contemporary society - god that makes me sound like a wanker. It was genuinely funny though and found I could watch it like I could a film, enjoying the storyline as much as the music and laughing out right. The man who played Dulcamara was excellent and another highlight was when one of the ‘cour de opera’ came out of the loo on stage with her dress tucked into her pants.
Right that’s all I will bore you with this week but in short very much enjoyed my alternative cultural pursuit and am going to attempt to introduce more opera, theatre, and preferably ballet to my cultural explorations.
See you next week xxxx
http://www.eno.org/see-whats-on/see-whats-on.php
So, have a real treat for all my poor readers this week – NOT an exhibition!! I know! Madness! This week I was fortunate enough to be invited by the lovely Andrew and Tom to The Elixir of Love by Donizetti performed by the English National Opera and directed by the august Jonathan Miller, who we saw standing in the foyer before the start!! He really is very hot for an old man. The venue (The Coliseum) has a lot of happy memories for me, especially before it was refurbished to its current sate of extreme Edwardian grandeur. At university, clearly being much more cultural and highbrow than I would ever dare to be now, we use to go all the time as you could get £3 tickets on the day – bargain! Alas it wasn’t quite as cheap as that this time but still excellent value for £16 – if you don’t mind the constriction of blood to your lower legs, but hey who needs toes! Interestingly we, patrons of the Balcony, are now thought to be so lowly we don’t even get the option of hiring the opera glasses they usually have in the back of the seats!! Luckily I had bought my own but in comparison to the Royal Opera House the view at the Coliseum is always fine anyway; the auditorium I think is much shallower so you never feel that far away. The Coliseum, all in all, I find to be a much less stressful and overwhelming experience than the Royal Opera House, you don’t even have to physically fight your way to the bar! It is also just so so beautiful and gilded inside.
Now, despite definite enjoyment I know NOTHING about opera at all. The singing was nice, they could all go very high and very low as necessary. The music was good. That’s about as much as I can say about that I’m afraid. Andrew kindly lent me his copy of the programme so I could have some interesting opera based things to talk about but I couldn’t understand what on earth they were going on about mostly. It was nonetheless interesting to see what I don’t understand – the list seems to be growing daily anyway. It seems opera is discussed academically like art!! Who knew!? I think it wise if I stay clear of this.
There were other articles/essays within the programme which I very much enjoyed, however, including the one discussing the use of love potions/elixirs in art throughout history. Flimsy is a word which sprung to mind. It started off well enough charting the use of the love potion as a device throughout the ages and briefly commenting on which era was particularly fond of using it, such as the 19th century (hurrah), and which weren’t. It then went on to discuss the use of love potions in contemporary arts siting such artistic highs as Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and Batman and Robin. Yes. Quite. Someone was paid for that.
For those of you interested the storyline was as follows: Nemorino is in love with Adina. She isn’t interested as she desires to remain ‘free’. Cocky young sergeant comes to town and attempts to woo her– she, wisely, isn’t interested. Nemorino, having listened to the ‘comical’ (??) story of Tristan and Isolde and their love induced by elixir, decides to accost the local crooked quack Dulcamara and purchases a bottle of what he thinks is love potion and of course is in fact booze. Full of Dutch courage Nemorino’s apparent indifference to Adina causes her to accept the sergeant’s offer of marriage to take revenge on Nemorino, as you do. Much hilarity ensues, obviously. The opera was originally set in 19th century Italy but here the events have been transposed to small town Americana in the 50s. The set was fabulous and obviously inspired by Hopper paintings but, according to the programme, was provided by the New York City Opera and originally created for the Royal Swedish Opera. I don’t know, therefore, whether they were created by Miller and he also directed this production elsewhere or whether Miller just directed and the actual performance was designed by someone else altogether. Oops. The costumes were also excellent and I particularly liked the white silk knee length pencil dress Adina wore in the second half – god the 50s were flattering.
The girl who played Adina is definitely worth mentioning. Obviously as to her vocal prowess I can make no comment but wow she was pretty!! As was the guy who played Nemorino – they were both young and both hot and definitely not fat!! A miracle for romantic leads in opera and definitely made a huge difference in involving the audience, or at least me, in the story.
I have mixed feelings about the ENO performing always in English as frankly it makes us look like ill-educated chav retards but it made a huge different to the enjoyment of the production in this instance. Often I find that even when they are singing in English you still can’t understand most of what they’re saying and usually it doesn’t matter anyway as they are just repeating the same thing over and over and then making annoying fake opera laughs. However, here the libretto (get me and my fancy opera terms) was amazing and in many places genuinely really really funny. Excellent additions for me included the use of the lyric ‘I’m a lover not a fighter’ – AMAZING!!! They also managed, at one point, to sing opera in the manner of Elvis which was hilarious. Almost the entire libretto had been altered to contain 50s vocabulary and all in all worked really really well, I thought! I very much liked listening to the damsel singing to the romantic lead to ‘get over it your crazy’. It was quite an eye opener to how relevant and accessible classical opera can/could be to contemporary society - god that makes me sound like a wanker. It was genuinely funny though and found I could watch it like I could a film, enjoying the storyline as much as the music and laughing out right. The man who played Dulcamara was excellent and another highlight was when one of the ‘cour de opera’ came out of the loo on stage with her dress tucked into her pants.
Right that’s all I will bore you with this week but in short very much enjoyed my alternative cultural pursuit and am going to attempt to introduce more opera, theatre, and preferably ballet to my cultural explorations.
See you next week xxxx
http://www.eno.org/see-whats-on/see-whats-on.php
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!!!
Monday, 15 February 2010
Week 5: Points of View; Capturing the 19th Century in Photographs/British Library
Morning lovely people and welcome to another One a Week – Week 5!! Woohoo! Am very glad that I have started doing this blog as otherwise there is no way in hell I would have dragged myself out of the house yesterday due to monumental hang-over and it ended up being the only time I witnessed day light the whole weekend OOPS. Unfortunately I had assumed, having read nothing about my chosen pursuit and it being free, that it would be quite small. Imagine my IMMENSE terror when I turned a corner after the first 2 rooms thinking it would be almost over and I had another 95% of exhibition to go!! Ugh definitely wouldn’t recommend going unless you are feeling v. sprightly and able minded/bodied.
So the exhibition in question, recommended by my old man, was Points of View; Capturing the 19th Century in Photographs at the British Library – and, again, it was free!! Amazing! Before I go further I should state, for the record, that this exhibition was certainly very flawed. For one thing it was way too big – pretty much attempting to survey the whole of 19th century photography. Unless this was a MAJOR exhibition in terms of money, time and space I think this was just too wide a theme for the curators to manage. It would have been better, I feel, for them to have concentrated on certain aspects rather than the whole shebang. Another fault was that in comparison to text, of which there was A LOT, there were surprisingly few photographs for a photography exhibition. Also the first 3 rooms or so are devoted solely to the invention and development of photography as a technical process with lots of old cameras and letters between the early pioneers of the discipline on show. My dad found this very interesting and certainly others will too but I am not sure how necessary or productive it was to include this type of extensive information, it may have been better left to the science museum etc.
However, saying all of the above it did occur to me that the photographs displayed here are some of the most important images that the world has produced and seen, well ever really. The modern world, the world as we know it and our attitude and understanding of that world and our place within it has been moulded by these photos and because of these photos. The exhibition covers every conceivable strand of Victorian photography, from post cards, celebrity portraits, scientific photos, ethnographic photos, anthropological photos, war photos, aesthetic photos, domestic photos, travel photos and much much more. Fucking everything you can think of in short. And these images are incredibly powerful and incredibly potent. It would take way too long to discuss appropriately each genre so I shall take just a few examples;
The obvious one to start with would be the anthropological photos on display. And it is here that your mind can get a little blown on a hung-over Sunday or a very tired Monday morning. The Victorians were obsessed with documenting the world around them as the empire kept growing and we found a need to prove and justify our exploitation and dominance over and clear superiority to everyone else. I should point out of course that this was a survey of world photography not just British stuff but frankly you could apply the same understanding to most of the countries who commissioned work or who patronised it. So, the question is what came first the chicken or the egg? The need that the Victorians had to wander the earth and ‘document’ cultures that they saw as fading out, because they were mostly stamping them out, is clearly because of colonial expansion but would they have bothered their arses to document so much if they were just drawing black people pinned up against walls? Would the Victorians obsessive need to catalogue and categorise and document EVERYTHING have been so potent if it had not been for the development of photography? Would photography have developed so quickly and with such success if it had not been for the Victorians need to document everything? I don’t know, this is not the place to thrash out a discussion but is interesting nonetheless. And the images that they produced, colonial images, fake images, true images – they are images that shaped the perception we have of these cultures and places for the next hundred years or more. Even if certain photos have been proven to be manipulated and invented it doesn’t matter, they have entered the public imaginational and they will stay there. The images may be firmly routed in imagination but they permeate the way we view different cultures to this very day.
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/pointsofview/themes/science/frogs/index.html
Colonial expansion went hand in hand with the growth of tourism. The growth of tourism goes hand in hand with the desire to document said tourist excursions. The desire to document these excursions leads to the desire to make other people really jealous that they weren’t there. Thus postcards are born! Amazing! The improvement of a reliable post and things like the invention of Christmas cards is also tied up with this surely and open to more intense discussion.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2694/4046926876_86421c030e.jpg
Celebrity photography is another interesting example. As you may know I love love love the celebrities and am fascinated by celebrity culture. In some ways our modern understanding and relationship to celebrity and the concept of celebrity dates back to images displayed in this exhibition. On display they had official publicity shots of Oscar Wilde taken during his American tour, Chares Dickens and Baudelaire amongst others. These images were sanctioned and circulated at the bequest of the sitter and usually to their financial gain. Queen Victoria, being amazing as always, was also quick to see the self publicity potentials in circulating official photographs of the Royal family. You can date the current, uneasy relationship between ’celebrity’ and general public to the increasing popularity and demand for images like these. Before this you could imagine celebrities existed in almost a purely ‘fantasy’ world, totally unconnected from the humdrum or maybe not so humdrum lives of their adoring masses. However, with the advent of cheaply circulated, enormously popular images of famous people, which could be easily carried around, taken into the home, stared at on the street – these images were crossing the previously sacred boundary of public and private domains and celebrities became the property of the masses, capable of being worshiped still yes, but also capable of being derided. These images were highly curated by the celebrity in question and produced to maximise on the commercial benefits of their image which in itself is also fascinating. The question of someone’s ownership of their image and patents is also touched on here and is equally interesting.
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/pointsofview/themes/portraits/wilde/index.html
Another intriguing comparison between ‘then and now’ provoked by the exhibition were also some of the earliest images to be displayed. When photography was first developing back in the 1850s it was taken up with enthusiasm as a hobby for the leisured classes. Thus there were several images of the moneyed enjoying their country seats and pleasant country pursuits. As photography grew in popularity it was increasingly exploited for commercial ends and was thus dropped as a past time by the rich because of it’s ‘trade’ associations. This I find fascinating as we all know it has since been taken up once again with much enthusiasm in the 20th century and now, most of us have some sort of camera whether fancy digital or crappy disposable. When did photography once again become a hobby? I’m assuming it was sometime in the 20th century when cameras and film made some kind of advance and were easily available commercially but it did strike me that the images on display from as early as the 1850s, were of about the same quality as the photos you get now from most digital cameras. We have gained ease certainly, but what have we lost in terms of quality? I think a lot!
Right this has gone on WAY too long but I would like to briefly touch on some of the later work which unfortunately I was forced to whiz round as they had just announced the shop was closing!!! By the way not a great postcard selection as fucking always. The end of the exhib touched briefly on the development of ‘aesthetic’ photography and the work of a group of people called the Brotherhood of the Linked Ring which is a fab name well done Victorians very weird as usual. This is where we see the debate of photography as art/photography versus art really getting into full swing as the contemporary tastes for painting, i.e. Impressionism and the move into Aestheticism start to bare their influence on styles of photography. I am not going to go too much into this as a) I don’t know much about it (or anything) and b) it would take a thesis but I will just state that these are not only very pretty images but are also very interesting when we consider the development of photography on painting around this time. Monet, Manet, Renoir, Degas etc were all influenced by photography as a way of viewing the world and this in turn effected their artistic style. It was interesting for me to see this process reversed and witness how much art, or painting should I say, influenced photography at this time.
http://ogimages.bl.uk/images/pointsofview/8_1_large.jpg
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/pointsofview/themes/progress/centralline/index.html
Right MASSVE exhibition within which anyone in earth would find something to interest them so go – it’s only on until the 7th March.
So the exhibition in question, recommended by my old man, was Points of View; Capturing the 19th Century in Photographs at the British Library – and, again, it was free!! Amazing! Before I go further I should state, for the record, that this exhibition was certainly very flawed. For one thing it was way too big – pretty much attempting to survey the whole of 19th century photography. Unless this was a MAJOR exhibition in terms of money, time and space I think this was just too wide a theme for the curators to manage. It would have been better, I feel, for them to have concentrated on certain aspects rather than the whole shebang. Another fault was that in comparison to text, of which there was A LOT, there were surprisingly few photographs for a photography exhibition. Also the first 3 rooms or so are devoted solely to the invention and development of photography as a technical process with lots of old cameras and letters between the early pioneers of the discipline on show. My dad found this very interesting and certainly others will too but I am not sure how necessary or productive it was to include this type of extensive information, it may have been better left to the science museum etc.
However, saying all of the above it did occur to me that the photographs displayed here are some of the most important images that the world has produced and seen, well ever really. The modern world, the world as we know it and our attitude and understanding of that world and our place within it has been moulded by these photos and because of these photos. The exhibition covers every conceivable strand of Victorian photography, from post cards, celebrity portraits, scientific photos, ethnographic photos, anthropological photos, war photos, aesthetic photos, domestic photos, travel photos and much much more. Fucking everything you can think of in short. And these images are incredibly powerful and incredibly potent. It would take way too long to discuss appropriately each genre so I shall take just a few examples;
The obvious one to start with would be the anthropological photos on display. And it is here that your mind can get a little blown on a hung-over Sunday or a very tired Monday morning. The Victorians were obsessed with documenting the world around them as the empire kept growing and we found a need to prove and justify our exploitation and dominance over and clear superiority to everyone else. I should point out of course that this was a survey of world photography not just British stuff but frankly you could apply the same understanding to most of the countries who commissioned work or who patronised it. So, the question is what came first the chicken or the egg? The need that the Victorians had to wander the earth and ‘document’ cultures that they saw as fading out, because they were mostly stamping them out, is clearly because of colonial expansion but would they have bothered their arses to document so much if they were just drawing black people pinned up against walls? Would the Victorians obsessive need to catalogue and categorise and document EVERYTHING have been so potent if it had not been for the development of photography? Would photography have developed so quickly and with such success if it had not been for the Victorians need to document everything? I don’t know, this is not the place to thrash out a discussion but is interesting nonetheless. And the images that they produced, colonial images, fake images, true images – they are images that shaped the perception we have of these cultures and places for the next hundred years or more. Even if certain photos have been proven to be manipulated and invented it doesn’t matter, they have entered the public imaginational and they will stay there. The images may be firmly routed in imagination but they permeate the way we view different cultures to this very day.
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/pointsofview/themes/science/frogs/index.html
Colonial expansion went hand in hand with the growth of tourism. The growth of tourism goes hand in hand with the desire to document said tourist excursions. The desire to document these excursions leads to the desire to make other people really jealous that they weren’t there. Thus postcards are born! Amazing! The improvement of a reliable post and things like the invention of Christmas cards is also tied up with this surely and open to more intense discussion.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2694/4046926876_86421c030e.jpg
Celebrity photography is another interesting example. As you may know I love love love the celebrities and am fascinated by celebrity culture. In some ways our modern understanding and relationship to celebrity and the concept of celebrity dates back to images displayed in this exhibition. On display they had official publicity shots of Oscar Wilde taken during his American tour, Chares Dickens and Baudelaire amongst others. These images were sanctioned and circulated at the bequest of the sitter and usually to their financial gain. Queen Victoria, being amazing as always, was also quick to see the self publicity potentials in circulating official photographs of the Royal family. You can date the current, uneasy relationship between ’celebrity’ and general public to the increasing popularity and demand for images like these. Before this you could imagine celebrities existed in almost a purely ‘fantasy’ world, totally unconnected from the humdrum or maybe not so humdrum lives of their adoring masses. However, with the advent of cheaply circulated, enormously popular images of famous people, which could be easily carried around, taken into the home, stared at on the street – these images were crossing the previously sacred boundary of public and private domains and celebrities became the property of the masses, capable of being worshiped still yes, but also capable of being derided. These images were highly curated by the celebrity in question and produced to maximise on the commercial benefits of their image which in itself is also fascinating. The question of someone’s ownership of their image and patents is also touched on here and is equally interesting.
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/pointsofview/themes/portraits/wilde/index.html
Another intriguing comparison between ‘then and now’ provoked by the exhibition were also some of the earliest images to be displayed. When photography was first developing back in the 1850s it was taken up with enthusiasm as a hobby for the leisured classes. Thus there were several images of the moneyed enjoying their country seats and pleasant country pursuits. As photography grew in popularity it was increasingly exploited for commercial ends and was thus dropped as a past time by the rich because of it’s ‘trade’ associations. This I find fascinating as we all know it has since been taken up once again with much enthusiasm in the 20th century and now, most of us have some sort of camera whether fancy digital or crappy disposable. When did photography once again become a hobby? I’m assuming it was sometime in the 20th century when cameras and film made some kind of advance and were easily available commercially but it did strike me that the images on display from as early as the 1850s, were of about the same quality as the photos you get now from most digital cameras. We have gained ease certainly, but what have we lost in terms of quality? I think a lot!
Right this has gone on WAY too long but I would like to briefly touch on some of the later work which unfortunately I was forced to whiz round as they had just announced the shop was closing!!! By the way not a great postcard selection as fucking always. The end of the exhib touched briefly on the development of ‘aesthetic’ photography and the work of a group of people called the Brotherhood of the Linked Ring which is a fab name well done Victorians very weird as usual. This is where we see the debate of photography as art/photography versus art really getting into full swing as the contemporary tastes for painting, i.e. Impressionism and the move into Aestheticism start to bare their influence on styles of photography. I am not going to go too much into this as a) I don’t know much about it (or anything) and b) it would take a thesis but I will just state that these are not only very pretty images but are also very interesting when we consider the development of photography on painting around this time. Monet, Manet, Renoir, Degas etc were all influenced by photography as a way of viewing the world and this in turn effected their artistic style. It was interesting for me to see this process reversed and witness how much art, or painting should I say, influenced photography at this time.
http://ogimages.bl.uk/images/pointsofview/8_1_large.jpg
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/pointsofview/themes/progress/centralline/index.html
Right MASSVE exhibition within which anyone in earth would find something to interest them so go – it’s only on until the 7th March.
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