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NADFAS Russian Art of the the Early Twentieth Century – Theodora Clarke

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Much was lost after the Russian Revolution but I hadn’t realised that we had lost so much stunning art. Not that the paintings were destroyed but the  Russian artists fled and those that remained or emerged were forced to paint along the party line. And whilst that did result in a very stylised form of design art such as  this Soviet Constructavism ,

 

It also resulted in nauseating sycophant art such as this Social Realism. Whatever Stalin was he wasn’t an idiot he understood that art was a very persuasive way of spreading a message with ease and force, especially to a largely illiterate society.
What is easy to forget is that prior to the revolution Eastern Russia was very European, all thorough their art you can see echoes of Paris, Rome, Stockholm. As you travel into the heart of Russia you see more art that is simply Russian inspired, two schools of art both pulling in different directions and looking to different sources for their inspiration; all lost due to cultural hegemony.
Clarke briefly discussed the artistic movements and artists that many of us may have heard of; the “Jack of Knaves” Diagliev, Malevich, Kandinsky, the Ballet Russe, generally we know these artists because they left Russia fearing the Soviet approach to art, but then we moved on to discuss who had been forgotten or suppressed.
Artists like Repin and Serov clearly looked to Europe.
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Ilya Repin 1873

 

 

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Ilya Repin 1873
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Valetin Serov 1887
Whereas artists such as Vrubel and Goncharova had a style of art more firmly rooted in a sense of Russia, its people, religion and fairy tales.
Not all artists fled or were smothered, Pavel Filonov painted this portrait of Stalin that perfectly represented social Realism and yet behind the scenes he was painting wildly avant garde painting often showing great misery.
 Ultimately, an incredibly talented and exciting artistic nation was suffocated and as a country was the poorer for it.
Links – 

Books

The Russian Experiment in Art 1863-1922 (World of Art) 
by Camilla Gray, Marian Burleigh-Motley 

The Russian Vision: The Art of Ilya Repin 
by David Jackson 

Russian and Soviet Views of Modern Western Art, 1890s to Mid-1930s (Documents of Twentieth-Century Art) 
by Ilia Dorontchenkov
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In which I nipped up to London, bumped into George Bernard Shaw in Mevagissey, listened to a £250,000 loudspeaker and fell in love with bits of paper.

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Hurley Books has had to take a bit of a back seat whilst we launched our holiday lets business, Dreaming Of Cornwall,  unfortunately the season waits for no man and suddenly we had missed the London Book Fair which I had every intention of going to this year. Anyway the stationery fair beckoned and whilst I’ve never been before, what the hell, we needed to pay some attention to the shop so I jumped onto the night train and slept my way up to London. As ever I woke up to an empty Paddington platform and struggled over to the first class lounge (it is so nice in there and open to all with a sleeper ticket.)

The wonderful Riviera Sleeper
If Leonard Cohen wrote SF

Finally caffeined up and ready to face London proper I headed off to Islington. I got onto the tube and promptly got off at the next stop. I swear I could have lifted both my feet off the floor and I wouldn’t have moved a millimetre, the crush was horrific.  I waited for three more equally press ganged torture chambers to pass and then I got on the fourth, where whilst I didn’t get a seat I could at least catch a breath.

An empty Paddington

The stationery fair was less hand made Italian papers and more salesmen with pen pitches. However, despite the rather business business feel to the place I did find some nice pens and some even nicer handmade paper and journals. Only some of which I thought would work in Mevagissey, so watch this space and see some of the lovely stuff we have ordered coming into the shop.

 

Much lushness

 

Much, much.

I got into a lovely conversation with a chap from Charfleet Book Bindery,  who recommended I visit Maison Assouline, an apparently remarkable bookshop, a not to be missed bookshop. Now I’ll be honest as I nodded my head and smiled enthusiatically, I was going to skip it and head straight to the V&A where I could drop the thirty thousand bags that the sales reps had laid me down with. Oh the weight! My shoulders and feet were killing me and for two pins I’d have just gone home. But you know the old prayer “I may only pass this way but once…”* So I decided to head off in search of this not to be missed bookshop. Could I just say, if you are in London, do go and visit, it really isn’t to be missed.

* Seems it was more a “Be nice” motto than a “Carpe Diem” one.

First off Maison Assouline is not a bookshop where you are likely to make a purchase unless it is one of their amazing cocktails from the large mahogany bar in the corner. The building was designed by Lutyens and from floor to ceiling the shelves are lined with folio signed art books; beyond glorious. The porter, yes porter, took my many bags from me, welcomed me and encouraged me to wander around.  I nosed about a bit and found an oak spiral staircase in the corner and climber up to a small bindery on the mezzanine floor, I wandered through oak corridors and found a room stuffed with antiques to furnish my own library with;astrolabes, zebra pelts, plinths but what was really calling my attention was the very loud and interesting music coming from another room. I opened the door and realised I had walked into some sort of very private event. There were only three people in a very large book lined room listening to a pair of phenomenal loudspeakers.  Again I was met with friendliness and waved in to browse the shelves but this time I just sat and listened to the rather incredible speakers. The music was loud but there was no bass reverb, no interference, if I had closed my eyes Billie Holiday could have been on the stage in front of me.   Eventually refreshed, I left and asked the staff downstairs what was going on. Apparently the speakers cost £250,000.00 (yes, that’s the correct amount of zeros) and are only sold on a private word of mouth basis via private audiences, and I gatecrashed one 🙂 If you are tempted they are called YAR and whilst I’m not sure if anything is worth that much money I would say that if you would consider that an acceptable price for speakers then these were pretty decent!

 

Maison Assouline
Oh to have this sort of space
Maison Assouline
Tucked away bindery 🙂

 

 

 Hand built YAR Speakers. Amazing sound.

Finally I made it to the V&A and made straight for the cloakroom where I dumped my oh too heavy bags and relaxed in the sunshine drinking a fresh lemonade. Then headed to the Underwear exhibition that turned out to be poorly curated and overpriced, that’s twice now, not impressed, but there was one little highlight. Behind one of the look don’t touch, don’t sketch, don’t photograph, don’t breathe cabinets was a picture of a chap in Jaeger longjohns with hat and parasol. Turned out to be George Bernard Shaw on the beach at Mevagissey!

Very cute but lacking some practical elements.
Maybe wear this over the top?
An oasis of calm.

And with a smile on my face I donned my metaphorical longjohns and headed back home.

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Hatshepsut – The Portrait of a Female Pharoah BODFAS NADFAS

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Hatshepsut c.1507–1458 BC
I had gone to great lengths to make it to this NADFAS as I am on a mission to not miss any and despite the disappointing start to the year I was not going to let that influence me. So I changed rotas in the shop, re-booked deliveries, and left with plenty of time.  Nadfas is wonderful but it’s a daytime gig and that’s difficult if you work or have small children and that’s reflected in the average age of the audience. However, if you are able to be flexible or to find a babysitter I would highly recommend visiting your local group.  Anyway I parked in plenty of time, with plenty of change for the car park and headed towards the door feeling all righteous and smug. Then my phone rang, the shop was closed, my staff were sick and where did I want these beds! Ugh, 5 seconds more and I’d have switched off my phone. Ten minutes later I slid everything back into place and dashed in late again reminding myself to not be so cocky in future.
Today’s talk was about Hatshepsut by Lucia Gahlin, Egyptologist from the Petrie Museum.  It was enjoyable to hear her name properly pronounced as I have always referred to her as Happy Batshit, which I’m aware is lazy and disrespectful of me.  In order to set the scene the lecturer needed to stress how unusual it was to have a female ruler in Egypt and after many slides of bulls, athletes and mighty erections she rammed the point home. Egypt was a masculine culture ruled by men. Once that point was emphatically made and underlined twice we went on to discover how she had become pharaoh. This then descended into the most complicated family tree made worse by the fact that Pharaohs can have multiple wives and that sisters can marry brothers. Eventually we got to the point where Pharaoh Thutmose II  had died leaving his young son, Thutmose III, from his second wife as Pharaoh, and Hatshepsut, his first wife, as regent Pharaoh.  This had happened previously so there was precedence but in both cases the regent had been the uping Pharaoh’s actual mother and she stepped away from the role when the boy reached majority, and as he was Pharaoh that was pretty much whenever he wanted it to be.
Hatshepsut  was different though. She herself was the daughter of a Pharaoh, Thutmose I, was a wife of Amun, their chief God and first wife of the Pharaoh, these were powerful titles but as we have seen in a male dominated society these titles may have just been window dressing. In becoming ruler she either chose to do so and out-trumped the mother, or she stepped up to the challenge as the mother didn’t want to rule.  Given her subsequent rule I would say the former, she was born in power and lived in power, the death of her husband wasn’t going to prevent that but that is wild speculation based on a very cloudy glass.
Djeser-Djeseru is the main building of Hatshepsut’s mortuary templecomplex at Deir el-Bahri. Designed by Senemut, her vizier, the building is an example of perfect symmetry that predates the Parthenon, and it was the first complex built on the site she chose, which would become the Valley of the Kings
The physical evidence of Hatshepsut’s reign is in her buildings and the words and images upon them as well as statues of her.  She is always depicted as Pharaoh alongside Thutmose III but most importantly as “first” Pharaoh. In all imagery of the pair of them she is named first and is always standing in the more powerful position.  Their joint rule appears harmonious and only ended on her death. At any point before that Thutmose could have called it a day but didn’t. Again we can only speculate. Maybe she was a power hungry tyrant as some would paint her but that holds no water on close inspection. Her power was only what she was given to her by a patriarchal society, had she been a problem she would have soon been made to step down.
Thutmose III out smiting his enemies

 

It seems much more likely the young boy was growing up and enjoying being a teenager, total freedom, playing and fighting. Many images depict him as an athletic warrior. Maybe he went off to battle knowing he had a damned good regent running the country, maybe he was lazy and didn’t actually want the responsibility.  Again we don’t know, but what we do know is there was a time of stability and prosperity during this joint reign. We know that he was engaged in some large battles following her death and this could have been evidence of the  tight lead that she kept Thutmose on.  It could also be evidence that she was a great diplomat and peace keeper and without her rule enemies sought to take advantage.
We can see that the earliest depictions of her as Pharaoh are clearly as female but after about 7 years she starts to look identical to Thutmose III, she is shown wearing male dress, a beard and virtually flat chested. Doubtless as she was ruing at the time she approved of this image change.

 

This early depiction of Hatshepsut shows her in female dress with a female figure.
In this later depiction  she is in the male kilt, wearing the beard and is pretty flat chested.
Following her death all seems fine until about 25 years later when she is suddenly and comprehensively rubbed off the wall.  Her name and images where she was depicted as Pharaoh were chipped off, her statues were thrown into a ditch and covered over and every mention of her as a Pharaoh was removed. As a wife and daughter she remained in evidence but as a Pharaoh she was excised. For a long time it was suggested that this was evidence to prove that she was indeed a wicked tyrant from whose tyranny Thutmose III was glad to escape. One or two years maybe but 25? That speaks to me more of an inheritance issue looming. Maybe there was a very strong wife or daughter somewhere in the background and the powers that be didn’t want her to be able to claim any sort of precedent. Maybe, Thutmose III was growing petulant and senile and wanted to rewrite history. More likely the destruction came from Amenhotep II, his son.  Who can tell?
A hundred years ago we weren’t even aware of how powerful Hatshepsut actually was.  And before we start moaning about lack of evidence let’s remember that when she came to the throne the pyramids of Giza were already 1500 years old, her country had been flourishing during all that time. She came to the throne in c.1350BC. In Britain in this time we know that Britons lived in wooden huts, some of them built structures out of non interlacing stones and that’s pretty much it. We don’t know the name of a single person, let alone what they got up to, their history or the history of their nation. In fact the first named person living in Britain is Imanuentius mentioned by Caesar in his campaigns in 54BC. Prior to this we are a mystery and we have to rely on an invader to shed any light on us.  So if we are concerned that so much of this seems sketchy and prone to speculation we are talking 3000 years ago, 25 years give or take is within certain statistical  parameters.
One very interesting sidebar, and there were many in the lecture, was the discussion of the land of Punt and the imagery used to portray foreigners. Although Egyptians appear in a very formalised way, and require name tags to denote who is being represented they were far more descriptive in their portrayal of foreigners. One particular portrait is the queen of Punt, she is displayed as being vastly overweight, whether this was a positive, negative or neutral message is hard to say. What we do know about Punt was that it was viewed by the Egyptians as a land of milk and honey, with great resources and was the source of their incense.  Enjoyably we have no idea where Punt was. I imagine that the reason we have a culture of lost cities and and lands is because we have an actual history of lost cities and lands!
Trade mission to Punt. These images show the first recorded transplantation of fauna.
The residents of Punt lived in stilt houses.
King Perahu and Queen Ati of Punt.
What we can say about Hatshepsut is that she reigned during a time of growth and stability. Her country was rich and stable enough to have an expansive building regime. She was clever and politically astute, she was quick to emphasise her relationship to Amun thereby engaging the support of the priests, a considerable power force in Ancient Egypt. We don’t know how she died but she was believed to have been around 50 years old. We know that the relationship between her and Thutmose III was probably good as nothing was done to efface her reign until a quarter of a century had passed.
I really enjoyed this lecture and have failed to mention half of what Lucia spoke of so please, if you are interested have a look at some of these links for more information.
Links – 

Books
Gahlin, L. 2009. Egypt. In D. Rathbone (ed.) Civilisations of the Ancient World. London: Thames and Hudson.
The Woman Who Would be King: Hatshepsut’s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt
by Kara Cooney. 2015
Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh  Joyce Tyldesley. 1998
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Three Great Families and their Gardens

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Three Great Families and their Gardens – Caroline Rayman – BODFAS

First Bodfas of the year and I’m going to try to make everyone as they have all been so good. Arrived by the skin of my teeth again, I do hate being late and settled down to some stunning gardens.

Ho hum, that wasn’t what I got.  The lecture was supposed to be about the gardens of the Astors, the Sackville Wests and the Rothchilds.  What it turned out to be was a who’s who of the nineteenth and twentieth century, with the odd flower thrown in. There’s no doubting that Vita was a gardener of note but you felt very much that for the others it was just something to do with all their land.  I’d have loved to hear revolutionary ideas about how they gave large parcels of land over as allottments or market gardens (obviously in the lower field where the peasants wouldn’t be noticed) but it was simply a talk about how wealthy they all were, how well connected they were, all the family in-fights and dynasties, which in itself was interesting but really it wasn’t a talk about gardens, gardeners or gardening. This quote summed it up

“No garden, however small, should contain less than two acres of rough woodland”. Lord Rothschild.

A good lecturer but on a subject that held little appeal to me with an emphasis that didn’t appeal.

Further reading
The Astors
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astor_family
https://www.hevercastle.co.uk/visit/gardens/history-hever-gardens/
The Rothschilds
https://www.waddesdon.org.uk/house/history-of-the-house
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothschild_family
The Sackville Wests
https://www.greatbritishgardens.co.uk/garden-designers/31-vita-sackville-west-1892-1962.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/property-and-architecture/31776/knole-house-birthrights-and-wrongs.html

Pinterest Images
https://uk.pinterest.com/hurleybooks/bodfas-nadfas-decorative-and-fine-arts-society/

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What we read in December

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Half the World – Joe Abercrombie

Having successfully read book one in this trilogy I happily ploughed into book two but found myself back where I began. Stumbling through it and dissatisfied.  I guess I really need to have my head in a certain place to enjoy Abercrombie, and at the moment I guess that I just don’t need that much snot in my life.

 

The Constant Princess – Philippa Gregory

Not awful but not great either. Didn’t finish or might have done. Can’t remember. Forgotten I’d read this until I saw it on my Instagram feed. (that was just two weeks ago)

 

The Moth Catcher – Ann Cleeves

Oh dear, I think my head is in the wrong place at the moment. This was OK but relied on some whopping coincidences to get the plot to work.  Also a constant repetition of how fat Vera was got tiresome.

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What we read in November

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The Book of Life – Deborah Harkness

After the frustrating Shining Girls I went back to finish the Harkness trilogy.  First time I read it I was disappointed as I didn’t think it was as good as the first two books. Now part of that is down to simple expectations. I read the first two as they came out and loved them so I had been desperately waiting for the concluding book and it just didn’t feel as good.  This would be my second read so it was interesting to see what was wrong with it.  Having enjoyed it more the second time I think its problem lay in having too much to fit in, too many characters and too many locations.  Everyone was constantly running around the place with more and more story lines being introduced and would up. It could probably done with a fourth book or better editing.  Either way I’m glad I read it again as it was better than I remembered by still not as good as books on and two.

Half a King – Joe Abercrombie

Having decided that The Book of Life was better than I remembered I returned to Half a King, a book I started last year but struggled with. I picked it up but this time was hooked straight away. I couldn’t even work out what I had found difficult. Abercrombie is a pretty gritty writer but this series is aimed at a younger market and was slightly toned down from his Best Served Cold books. That said it’s not exactly lacking violence or bodily functions.  Standard fantasy themes but told with spit and sawdust.

 

The Giant Under the Snow – John Gordon

November was all about going back because this was a book that I had loved as a child and had always wanted to re-read but couldn’t remember the title, just the book cover and a vague sense of plot.  Of course there is a huge risk of disappointment in going back to a childhood favourite but not on this occasion although there were a few surprises. The first was that it was set in Norfolk where I grew up, so obviously the descriptions of the city and the countryside resonated. The second was that the main protagonist was a girl, I’d have put money on it being a boy. I’m guessing that was the tomboy in me, that or I wasn’t used to reading books were the central character was female, I mostly read adventure and fantasy stories, books about school, ballet or horses just didn’t appeal. The next surprise was that it wasn’t the right book! Or at least it was but there is another book out there very similar and I read that as well and have managed to blend them in my memory. So that’s another book to track down, only now I don’t have a book cover either. The final surprise in tracking this down is that it apparently is about to be made into a film. Go figure. Anyway, it’s very good and hasn’t dated. A very good tale based on English folklore. Along the lines of Susan Cooper or Alan Gardner

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What we read in October

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A Discovery of Witches – Deborah Harkness

Not sure why but I’ve ground to a halt with books to read, I think its just because I’m busy and don’t have the time to get into anything new. When I feel like this I like to reread old favourites, I know what I’m in for and I don’t have to concentrate. So that’s why I’ve returned to the Deborah Harkness trilogy. I love everything about it, its an academic girl, old manuscripts, magic, love, treachery and good writing and vampires in Oxford.

Shadow of Night – Deborah Harkness

What can I say but more of the same only this time we travel back in time to Elizabethan England, France and Prague. Harkness is first and foremost a historian and academic so her books are full of lovely historical references and anecdotes. I spent most of my time on-line looking up paintings and artefacts and listening to beautiful music.

The Shining Girls – Lauren Beukes

Change of tack and I saw this on a friends bookshelf. I had dismissed this originally as it had been touted by Richard and Judy and appeared to be an American crime book.  Two things that don’t appeal.  Now I know they don’t appeal to my friend either so on his recommendation I gave it a go.  Beukes first two books were fantasy / horror; this I would consider a cross over.  It started with a very promising concept. A serial killer wanders into a house that acts as a time portal from the 1920s to modern day he wanders back and forth through time killing girls that shine out to him and leaving mementos from previous kills at the next scene. He is unchallenged until one girl escapes and she tries to track her would be killer down. And here the story starts to stutter, it really should have worked better but for some reason it just doesn’t hang right. It becomes stilted, sometimes hopelessly over-complicated, other times really interesting thing aren’t even considered. Why do the girls shine? Why can he see them? What is the house about?

Beukes is clearly moving into John Connolly territory and is going to do well with great writing and imagination.  I just think this book was a stumble, I’ll definitely try something else by her.

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Words and your Heart – the most optimistic, happy book for children

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Words and your Heart

 

Kate Jane Neal

 

£7.99

BUY THIS BOOK NOW! 

Oh this is so gorgeous and I am thrilled to be stocking it. It is such a wonderful book about the power of words, not hurting each other with them and how we can make other people feel better with the right ones. The minute I read it I was thinking of all the children that I knew that would love this, it is so positive. Available in the shop or online. This is a new author and it’s her first book so please like and share, she deserves every success.

Postage options
Collect from shop £7.99 GBP UK Postage £8.99 GBP Overseas Postage £10.99 GBP

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The British Portrait from Hogarth to Hockney – Vivien Heffernan

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Well today’s talk started with the AGM, a mercifully brief and efficient meeting and then we were off into the talk.  With regards to the AGM it’s worth me noting how much I enjoy being part of this society and appreciate all the work that the committee do to achieve it.
 
Anyway the talk, maybe because the subject was so large or the talk time was shorter than usual this talk seemed “less” than others, nonetheless it was still interesting.  Through a range of portraits  that neither started with Hogarth nor ended with Hockney we looked at the progression of the mainstream British portrait, although not everyone was British.

To see the paintings better click on them. Each link will take you to a larger picture and a far more detailed discussion of the painter and painting.
 
Initially we discussed the honesty of a portrait. Portraits were usually commissioned by the wealthy and the powerful and as we have no photographic sources we have to rely on the fact that certain licences may have been taken.  The more powerful the sitter the more likely they dictate the reality of the image.  As the power shifts towards the fame of the painter they can insist on their own interpretation of the sitter.
 
Gerlach Flicke 1554
We started with the first known British self portrait in oil, 1554 by Gerlach Flicke featuring himself and Strangwish. It was done in prison, and details a friendship between the two men. Flicke was a portraitist but was in prison for his support of the Wyatt rebellion. Strangwish was a gentleman privateer and had stepped over the line. The most striking thing about the portrait is the size, at 11cm by 8cm it’s tiny. The second interesting fact is that the writing over the German, Flicke is in Latin, the writing above Strangwish is English, possibly suggesting a hierarchy of language and importance.
 
Hogarth 1745
Moving on to Hogarth we are in full English ascendency in fact Hogarth was almost xenophobic in his love of Britain. In his self portrait we see his books are by  Shakespeare, Swift and Milton. His dog features heavily being in the foreground and almost the same size.  We also see his line of beauty and grace depicted on a palette, this sweeping line is apparent throughout all his portraits. 

Coram by Hogarth 1740 

Onto his portrait of Captain Coran we again see the superfluous sweeping line in the line of his collar. Coran was a  great figure in British society and Hogarth has raised him above the viewer giving him greater presence over us. Hogarth writes in English rather than latin in the picture again underlining his love of all thing English. There is always humour in Hogarth, this time it is in the grand majestic setting, the seal of office, the classical columns, the throne like arrangement and sitting magnificently in the middle is a rather scruffy hap hazard man. It is not mocking him rather it suggests that the honest man is to be upheld not airbrushed. 
 
 
His third portrait was well known to me as the smiling cat but better known as the Graham Children.
Graham Children by Hogarth 1742
There are so many things to see in this paining but the one I like focusses on the cat.  The boy is smiling up at the goldfinch no doubt believing it is his playing that is making the bird cheep but we can see that in fact it’s the cat above.  The boy and the cat also have the same expression. But the last joke that Hogarth wants to make is to make us see what is going to happen next. The latch on the birdcage is undone, any second now the cat will pounce, the bird will flees and this perfect scene will descend into chaos. Incidentally the line of beauty in this portrait is depicted in the white apron pulled up and swept over the blue girl’s arm; a very deliberate arrangement.



 
Vivien was at pains to point out that portrait artists love to tell to stories about the sitters in the scene, painting are full of clues and allegories. You will always learn more about the sitter by looking in the background and the objects placed around them.



 
Garrick by Gainsborough 1770
Garrick by Reynolds 1760





Next we compared Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, Reynolds was the Court painter and was in such demand that he normally just did the face with the rest of his workshop finishing his work.. He’s also considered by some to not be as good as Gainsborough, he struggled to capture a likeness and the paint that he used often cracked and often has to be conserved, Vivien was saying that an art restorer she knew has never had to restore a Gainsborough but regularly restores Reynolds. The two following paintings are of the same man David Garrick, Gainsborough’s portrait 1770 is a very intimate friendly confiding picture. Reynolds painting, 1760 is of a far wider scope and as we can see from the two pieces the face isn’t quite the same. I know who I’d choose to paint me!
 
Rossetti, 1847
Annie Miller as Helen of Troy, Rossetti, 1863



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Lady Agnew by Singer Sargent, 1892
 
Jumping forward we get to Gabriel Dante Rossetti and his self portrait in 1847. Rossetti wasn’t considered to be a great draughtsman so got around this by pretty much filing up his canvas with the sitter. In his own image he leaves the background blank, in the one of Annie Miller her gorgeous textures fill the space. The romanticism of the mid eighteenth century was rampant amongst the Pre Raphaelites and have a look at the beauty of Lady Agnew by Singer Sargent, 1892  From the look of her she rather liked Sargent, it’s a very louche portrait with the sitter off centre and very relaxed.  Have a look at her skin through her muslin sleeve, so translucent.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Whistler’s Mother, 1871
From the pure romances we get to Whistler and his mother in 1871.  This painting in its simple palette of colours and angles makes us remember that photography was on the rise.  Artists were also beginning to show portraits that told of everyday life. Now artists were become more common as more people hung art in their homes. 
 
 


 
 
 
 
Ennui, Sickert, 1914
Sickert has done a lovely painting of a married couple called Ennui. Everything about the picture suggests how fed up the wife is of her life and how complacent the husband is about his. Clearly this wasn’t a commission but an artist beginning to paint to sell to whoever would buy his work.  Art was becoming more commercial.








We are also starting to see the rise of female artists, Laura Knight has done this wonderful portrait and self portrait in 1913. She has her back to us, her sitter has her back to us and is naked and then the painting itself also shows the back.  Three women all with their backs to the viewer. I love this picture, it’s so “so what!” but look how she draws attention to her tiny half profiled face. Despite it taking up very little space on the canvas we notice it instantly because it is set against white space and pops out. Just as a nice little touch she bought that cardigan at Penzance market.
 
Laura Knight, 1913
 
And then portraits can be scorching.  This is Stanley Spencer’s portrait of his wife and daughter.  You won’t be surprised to discover that he painted this after he left them to set up house with a woman that he thought he loved and loved him too but in turn turned out to be a lesbian only after his money. It’s hard to tell who is more hurt and let down, the family or the dolls.  More pain shows through Hockney’s portrait of  The Clarks and Percy (Ozzie Clark and Celia Birtwell) in 1970having just wed. Hockney was their best man, clearly he could see what they couldn’t and they were divorced by the end of the year. Incidentally if Ozzie Clark’s feet look awkward its because Hockney couldn’t do feet so he hid them in the shag pile.
 
Hilda by Spencer, 1937


The Clarks and Percy by Hockney, 1970
 
From one Hodgkin to another. The first is by Howard Hodgkin and is a picture of Patrick in Italy, 1993. Doesn’t he look, happy? Er?  The second is a picture of Dorothy Hodgkin by Maggi Hambling 1985. A brilliant study of a brilliant scientist and look how busy, she has four arms.
 
Dorothy Hodgkin by Maggi Hambling, 1985


Patrick in Italy, Hodgkin, 1993
 
 
 
 Finally we come full circle to commission portraits. This time we have one of the UK’s most famous and respected artists Lucien Freud painting the Queen, the nation’s pre-eminent figure. So what happens now; is it about the power of the sitter or the power of the artist? There were six years of negotiation before this portrait occurred, even more telling was that the Queen allowed 22 sittings when she normally only gives three.  The resulting portrait was hated by many but I imagine the Queen rather liked it. She has no need of false flattery and strikes me as a rather down to earth lady. Despite the crown.
 
The Queen by Freud, 2001
 
 
So another whistle stop summation. To get a real flavour for the talks find your local NADFAS and enrol. 
 
 
Links – 

 
 
 
  
 
 
 
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What we read in September

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A Year of Marvellous Ways – Sarah Winman

Gorgeous characters, clever writing veers between lyrical poetry and coarse vulgarity. There was something very beguiling about this book, the story was slow and troubling and at times heartbreaking. And in a shift as quick as a fish turning, the story would be fun of light and laughter. Very compelling and spot on descriptions of Cornish creeks and river life.

 

All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr

This took me forever to read which was surprising as it was full of tiny sections and I kept turning page after page.  I think it was just that this was a very busy month for me and I just didn’t get many opportunities to pick up a book.
All the Light We Cannot See is, quite simply, a very, very good book. I thought it was going to be dense, hard going and “worthy.” It really is none of those things despite the difficult subject manner. I fell in love with all the children in this book and have never read anything that shows how miserable life was for German children before the war and what an awful role and legacy their country prepared for them. I was also entranced by Marie Louise’s world of touch and sound. This is a beautiful book, go read it.

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