Hello all and welcome back me. Apologies for my absence yesterday and last week; I had the day off yesterday and last week I was recovering from the cultural overload that was Israel – I firmly believe my excess holiday activity made up for the following weeks total abject laziness though. To catch up on what I got up to on my holiday (or what the weird Christians on the way back would have called a ‘pilgrimage’ – funny that) read the 3 mini-blogs listed below. I had a lovely time indeed.
This week I was fully back on the cultural trail thanks to the lovely Andrew whose press pass got us in free to the National Gallery exhibition: Painting History; Delaroche and Lady Jane Grey. It would have been £8 otherwise!!! Luckily I still wasted lots of money on postcards, audio guides and most importantly a lot of coffee. Think I sent about £30 on coffee this weekend actually, oh dear.
Firstly, I love love love Lady Jane Grey – it’s one of my top 3 favourite pics in the National Gallery which is saying something. Unwisely, and not true to form, last week I started reading the Brian Sewell review of the exhibition in the Evening Standard. He was very silly indeed. I didn’t read after the first 2 paragraphs as he was talking such total smug bollocks but he started attacking my beloved Lady Jane Gray, ATTACKING it, when everyone knows it’s amazing- I mean for god’s sake they have based an entire exhibition around the fucking thing. Prick. Anyway, Brian was claiming the National Gallery didn’t have any proper History paintings and now never would. I have to say after seeing this exhibition I think this can only be a good thing as clearly we know neither how to appreciate them nor, more worryingly, how to look after them. It turns out Lady Jane Gray was presumed destroyed in the Tate flood in the 1920s and it wasn’t until the 1970s that anyone bothered to even unroll the canvas to have a look! When they did so they found it in almost perfect condition – they only opened it up to look for another painting by someone else! Shocking. Also, upstairs, they had another massivo painting by Delaroche called Charles I Insulted which had been bombed during the war and suffered major shrapnel damage and the first time it had been unrolled since 1941 was 2009!!! WTF???? WHY would they not do so before? I understand if they didn’t have the money to restore it before now but for god’s sake they could have at least opened it up to have a look sometime in the last 60 years surely?? Really bad form.
Anyway, this is all very interesting when discussed in terms of the reception of both Delaroche’s work and the whole genre of painting he worked within. Clearly Delaroche had fallen quite significantly out of favour sometime between his death and the beginning of the 20th century. This is something the curators return to throughout the exhibition and use somewhat as a framework. However, they don’t seem to draw any real conclusions about why he was so unfashionable for so long except that, apparently, according to them, come the 20th century no one cared about the past anymore (??? – really??).
Rather than being a straight out Delaroche show they have chosen instead to set him within his artistic milieu discussing artists who would have influenced him and then following through to artists who he would have influenced, which I found an interesting approach. The exhibition begins with a room of Troubadour paintings. This was a style of painting which found great popularity in the later part of the 18th century and early 19th century (I THINK) and was a reaction to Neoclassicism (why oh why anyone would want to react against Neoclassicism I have no idea but there you go different strokes for different boats). Pissed off with the constant unrest and regime changes of the last few decades artists turned to the newly opened Musée du monument français in Paris; a museum housing the remains of any medieval art or architecture that had not been destroyed by successive generations of political extremism. It became hugely popular, imbuing the medieval past with a romanticized image of a simpler, nobler time, filled with Christian goodness and appropriated as the usual escapist fantasy idyll. In painting this new style united Neoclassicism, and a more romanticized (pre Romanticism obviously), domestic form of art usually involving some delicate and touching family or domestic scene. Images such as this are a bit like a precursor to the Victorian domestic parlor painting with supposedly accurate historical details in costume and setting married with the 19th century taste for gentle and whimsical interior scenes; it’s basically Neoclassicism-light. These, I have to admit, are all pretty grotesque but am not in the least bit surprised they were so popular around this era. It was the fashion for this genre which secured Delaroche’s popularity during his lifetime. Annoyingly I can’t seem to find a single image from this room of the exhibition though sorry.
This week I was fully back on the cultural trail thanks to the lovely Andrew whose press pass got us in free to the National Gallery exhibition: Painting History; Delaroche and Lady Jane Grey. It would have been £8 otherwise!!! Luckily I still wasted lots of money on postcards, audio guides and most importantly a lot of coffee. Think I sent about £30 on coffee this weekend actually, oh dear.
Firstly, I love love love Lady Jane Grey – it’s one of my top 3 favourite pics in the National Gallery which is saying something. Unwisely, and not true to form, last week I started reading the Brian Sewell review of the exhibition in the Evening Standard. He was very silly indeed. I didn’t read after the first 2 paragraphs as he was talking such total smug bollocks but he started attacking my beloved Lady Jane Gray, ATTACKING it, when everyone knows it’s amazing- I mean for god’s sake they have based an entire exhibition around the fucking thing. Prick. Anyway, Brian was claiming the National Gallery didn’t have any proper History paintings and now never would. I have to say after seeing this exhibition I think this can only be a good thing as clearly we know neither how to appreciate them nor, more worryingly, how to look after them. It turns out Lady Jane Gray was presumed destroyed in the Tate flood in the 1920s and it wasn’t until the 1970s that anyone bothered to even unroll the canvas to have a look! When they did so they found it in almost perfect condition – they only opened it up to look for another painting by someone else! Shocking. Also, upstairs, they had another massivo painting by Delaroche called Charles I Insulted which had been bombed during the war and suffered major shrapnel damage and the first time it had been unrolled since 1941 was 2009!!! WTF???? WHY would they not do so before? I understand if they didn’t have the money to restore it before now but for god’s sake they could have at least opened it up to have a look sometime in the last 60 years surely?? Really bad form.
Anyway, this is all very interesting when discussed in terms of the reception of both Delaroche’s work and the whole genre of painting he worked within. Clearly Delaroche had fallen quite significantly out of favour sometime between his death and the beginning of the 20th century. This is something the curators return to throughout the exhibition and use somewhat as a framework. However, they don’t seem to draw any real conclusions about why he was so unfashionable for so long except that, apparently, according to them, come the 20th century no one cared about the past anymore (??? – really??).
Rather than being a straight out Delaroche show they have chosen instead to set him within his artistic milieu discussing artists who would have influenced him and then following through to artists who he would have influenced, which I found an interesting approach. The exhibition begins with a room of Troubadour paintings. This was a style of painting which found great popularity in the later part of the 18th century and early 19th century (I THINK) and was a reaction to Neoclassicism (why oh why anyone would want to react against Neoclassicism I have no idea but there you go different strokes for different boats). Pissed off with the constant unrest and regime changes of the last few decades artists turned to the newly opened Musée du monument français in Paris; a museum housing the remains of any medieval art or architecture that had not been destroyed by successive generations of political extremism. It became hugely popular, imbuing the medieval past with a romanticized image of a simpler, nobler time, filled with Christian goodness and appropriated as the usual escapist fantasy idyll. In painting this new style united Neoclassicism, and a more romanticized (pre Romanticism obviously), domestic form of art usually involving some delicate and touching family or domestic scene. Images such as this are a bit like a precursor to the Victorian domestic parlor painting with supposedly accurate historical details in costume and setting married with the 19th century taste for gentle and whimsical interior scenes; it’s basically Neoclassicism-light. These, I have to admit, are all pretty grotesque but am not in the least bit surprised they were so popular around this era. It was the fashion for this genre which secured Delaroche’s popularity during his lifetime. Annoyingly I can’t seem to find a single image from this room of the exhibition though sorry.
This use of supposedly detailed historical realism bought Delaroche to England where he sketched backgrounds to some of his most famous paintings including the Princes in the Tower. Themes such as this were highly popular during this period and Delaroche uses the story to full effect creating a canvas bursting with suspense and fear. This image is particularly interesting as it demonstrated Delaroche’s superior understanding of space and gesture as dramatic device. Originally conceived as a portrait style canvas; additional strips were added to both sides to include a dog and a locked door. These additions are what make this image so successful, the small animal sits up with ears raised in the direction of the locked door which displays just a crack of light and the unmistakable shadow of someone on the other side – scary. This lead to one of the more interesting rooms of the exhibition which demonstrates the influence of theatre on Delaroche’s work. When I mentioned this to my friend John he rolled his eyes and said something along the lines of ‘oh god not that bloody theme again’; but in fairness I really do think it applied to Delaroche’s style! It turns out he was good mates with playwrights such as the FAB Dumas and even designed stage sets for some plays during his lifetime. This helped him to develop an understanding of space as a dramatic devise – realizing that the absence of action/figures on a canvas could be as dramatically effective as a canvas packed with action and drama. Likewise the firm clear gestures of his figures are often borrowed from stock acting poses of the era. He also returned to themes for paintings which had been recently popularized by stage plays etc.
Assassination of the duc de Guise at Blois: 1834
One of the most interesting outcomes of this theatrical influence was his use of the window or an opening off stage as a dramatic element in the composition and narrative of his paintings. This can be seen in images such as the Princes in the Tower but also paintings such as Strafford led to Execution where the emotive hands of Charles I sticking through the window are able to express all the torture and humility needed.
Another interesting nay great piece is Cromwell – another v big painting which saw Delaroche once again returning to themes from British history. This caused a massive stir when it was shown at the Salon of 1831. Themes from this period of British History were very poplar in France at this time as it was easy to draw parallels between 
the British unrest of the 17th century and the French political upheavals of the 18th and 19th centuries. In this wonderfully creepy painting Cromwell stands over the coffin of his arch nemesis Charles I, holding back the lid and contemplating the demise of the great man within. Here we see the new contemplating the old, the unrest and uncertainty of ‘democracy’ face to face with the old order of King, monarchy and unswerving devotion and obedience to the crown. .
the British unrest of the 17th century and the French political upheavals of the 18th and 19th centuries. In this wonderfully creepy painting Cromwell stands over the coffin of his arch nemesis Charles I, holding back the lid and contemplating the demise of the great man within. Here we see the new contemplating the old, the unrest and uncertainty of ‘democracy’ face to face with the old order of King, monarchy and unswerving devotion and obedience to the crown. .Other masterpieces in the show included, obviously, the great Execution of Lady Jane Gray along with other woks such as Young Christian Martyr, which was based on his wife and Marie Antoinette leaving the Convention after her Sentence. These all demonstrate some kind of weird fixation with innocent yet condemned tragic female figures, a trend he seemed to move away from after the death of his wife yet demonstrates the influence of Troubadour painting on his work.
The rest of the exhibition concentrates on the studies for the Execution of Lady Jane Grey, including some really inappropriate letters between him and the likely model, an actress he was clearly knocking off. It was so gross actually, nothing to do with the art what-so-ever just a chance for everyone to laugh at the poor guy in love – everyone knows soppy love letters should never be read out of context and all this part of the exhibition proved was that Delaroche wanted to get his end in and consequently wrote a lot of cheesy rubbish – it was really cringey poor guy. There was also a room showing examples of later artists influenced by Delaroche including a Beautiful painting by Gerome – see below:
I could go on an on about the FAB use of purple drapes and strange heavy carved wood barriers in front of the paintings but luckily for you all i wont as need some lunch!
See you next week xxx
