Diary Dates

Degas, Sickert and Toulouse-Lautrec: London and Paris 1870-1910

This is the latest big show to be exhibited at Tate Britain, The stars of the show where Degas, Sickert and Toulouse-Lautrec, three of the leading artists of the beginning of the last century. This show seeks to illuminate to us just why this was and how they worked off each other to create one of the brightest periods of European art.

Each room specialises on each of the artists and how other lesser artists took there style and adapted it to their own. The effect was to break many a taboo and create new rules that future artists could follow and develop especially the futurists who saw this as the beginning of their development.

As I neared the end of the show and saw the room dedicated to the nude and then onto portraits of artists and famous people of the time, I could see how these artists and those like them were trying to develop a new state of realism in their work and how blinkered the establishment was for that time. It would seem quite tame to us now but then it caused quite an uproar.

I liked the show to a point in that it gave me a good over view of these artists of whom I am fond, but it also seemed quite thin and never really explained to me in great depth just why these artists did what they did and why it caused such a controversy at the time, what there was, was restricted to just one room and I thought it needed more.

But for giving a sense of the time and its people it went a long way.

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Joshua Reynolds: The Creation of Celebrity

Reviewed

24th May 2005

When I arrived at Tate Britain I tried to imagine what kind of art I was about to see. I had visions of vast paintings with strutting generals on horse back, society ladies in their finery or important and historical men of the times. The sort of thing you imagine hanging in some stately home surrounded by gilt and priceless air-looms.

What I did see did not disappoint, it was all that I imagined and much more. The exhibition is split into 8 different rooms, each one focusing on the different subjects that Reynolds worked on during his career. The first room was about the man himself, from when he first appeared on the scene in 1743 till one of his final portraits in 1788.
This allowed me to get the measure of the man.

From what I saw and learned, he was a very confident and to a certain degree egotistical man, even his more elderly portraits show that he had shaved off a number of years off his true age.

Many passed masters including Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Sir Anthony Van Dyke and Rembrandt influenced Reynolds. If you look closely you can see their different styles appearing. This is most obvious in his self-portraits.

We are then treated to a gallery of who’s who of the military of the age. Most of them are connected to the 7 years war that raged in America between Britain and France. Plus we also see some who were involved in action in other parts of the colonies.

What was fascinating about these paintings was how Reynolds captured their character and also how they were posed to signify what the battle they were in, what took place in the battle and what happened to them in that battle. In some ways a PR stunt for the 16th Century.

Further on we meet The Streatham Worthies a group of Reynolds’ closest friends. These include Samuel Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith two of the most famous men of the era. We get a sense from these pictures that these are not only quite private affairs but also and image to publicize the sitter as some of Reynolds’s works were turned into prints and sold to the less wealthy, to hang on their walls.

It becomes obvious as you continue on through the exhibition that Reynolds is moving ever higher in society as the clients he paints become more and more influential. Ranging from prominent writers to stars of the stage. Indeed he eventually got the chance to paint Prince George (Prince of Wales).

He went on to be the official royal artist and was knighted for his services. Not only that but he was one of the first to establish the Royal Academy and became its first President.

Reynolds died in 1792 after battling chronic liver failure. What he left behind was a long lasting legacy in the Royal Academy but also as to how portrait painting can influence and change peoples preconceived ideas of those in power and privilege. Much of which is still very much in practice today, in the media and the art world.

I found the show very interesting. It allowed me a window in to a world long since departed. Visually it inspired in me ideas of the decor used in that era and the effect such a painting would command in a drawing room or the top of a sweeping staircase. I highly recommend this exhibition to anyone who is thinking of working on a project where renovation is it’s basis or for anyone focusing on interior decoration as a career.

The exhibition is on at TATE BRITAIN from 26th May till 18th September 2005. It is open from 10am – 5.40pm (last admission 5pm). Ticket prices are £7 (£5.50p concessions)

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JOSEPH BEUYS EXHIBITION

- TATE MODERN -

Joseph Beuys I have to admit did not figure large in my consciousness up till now, this may be due in part to my chosen path during my Degree or to put it more simply I am more of a painter fan than a sculpture nut. However, I entered the exhibition hoping to be converted. That it has.

Joseph Beuys was one of the most famous and influential German artist’s of the last century. His art career started shortly after the Second World War, he developed a style that evolved over the years until he broke onto the scene in the 1960’s, His work can be split into three separate areas, the first he called ‘The Vitrines’ (Room 9) which were specially built glass boxes filled with objects that either connected in some way or were items that he had an affinity with. The second was his ‘Action’ or performances (Room 4). He spoke at forums on social and political issues and illustrated these on black boards with chalk, some of which are displayed on one of the walls. In the centre of the room are two monitors, one showing the forum related to the hung blackboards. The other a film of Beuys in a cage with a coyote, in it we see Beuys playing with the coyote in different manners and guises getting various different responses from the animal. The other walls in the room are dedicated to stills blown large of the film. The third aspect are his sculptural environments (Rooms 1, 2, 3,5, 6, 7, 8 and 10), each piece made to fill a specific space, all were made to highlight his concerns with society and politics.

Of all the sculptures that I saw the one that I liked the most is called The Pack (1969). The sculpture consists of a VW Bus and a large number of sleds erupting from its back. On each slay is a felt blanket, a torch and a lump of fat. This offers up a sense of raw energy and an instinct for survival. It is said that this piece is heavily influenced by a true story in which Beuys was involved in a plane crash over the Crimea during WW2, which he survived thanks to being rescued by a band of Tartars who coated his body with fat and wrapping him up a with felt blanket, before taking him to safety.

As I left I tried to form an understanding of Beuys and his work that would excite and encourage you to visit and view for your self the variety and vision that he imparts on the world. What this show is, is a dissection of the artists life, offering you his beliefs, fears and experiences for you to depict as you walk round (which in essence is what art is there to do). I highly recommend you go.

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