During the summer, I visited some exhibitions at art museums and have written short reviews of my two favourites.
A friend and I visited Paris in August and spent the most part of a day in the Louvre, exploring the halls and observing the pieces. It was not an exhibition in particular that captured my interest, but an arrangement of pieces in a particular room. In the Denon wing of the gallery, beside the twin staircase to the cafe, there's a hall that houses Delacroix's 'Liberty Leading the People' (1830) and Gericault's 'Raft of The Medusa' (1818-1819) among others. I had previously written about these pieces for an essay and so I had it in mind to see them, expecting to prefer Delacroix's painting, but the magnitude of Gericault's painting coupled with the
chiaroscuro made it difficult to look at anything else. The pyramid
structure of the piece has amazing presence in person, and this seems
all the more fitting to Gericault's aims – it was a
politically-charged piece, highly controversial at its time of
creation, and its size contributes to the importance of its message.
Controversiality is something I'm attracted to in artwork and I enjoy
creating things with a political undercurrent, so Gericault's
representation of stranded men and corpses engages me. Gericault's
treatment of figures in various poses and with strong lighting also
appeals, as this is something I'm trying to improve in my own work - I want to expand my variation of poses when drawing figures.
Whilst Delacroix's 'Liberty Leading the People' also has a
powerful presence on the wall, when you are close to the piece it
becomes very easy to see where the paint has been applied
economically, and the illusionist texture is less convincing. You can
tell that Delacroix has not spent as long painting his piece as
Gericault has, as Delacroix's piece was a spontaneous, passionate
reaction to his social climate. Gericault's painting has cracks in
the oil-paint that are beautiful to look at up close, and there is a
sickly greenish hue to the skin of the figures that is truly
haunting. When you compare 'Raft of the Medusa' to Gericault's
other paintings in the Denon wing, there is something about this
painting in particular that feels inspired. To give an indication of
the power the paintings held in that hall, the Louvre ran Nintendo DS
audio tours of each wing and popular paintings, and the story
partnering Gericault's work made me incredibly emotional despite already knowing
the facts. The genre of documentary/political art in general is a huge source of inspiration for me as it concerns the struggles of real people, and work like Gericault's touches me easily. I enjoyed the entire Denon wing, whereas more historical
artwork such as ancient Egyptian artefacts, medieval crypts and Greek
sculpture eventually became exhausting to look at because of the
sheer size of the wings and the general similarity of all the pieces.
 |
| 'Raft of The Medusa', Gericault, Oil on Canvas, 1818-19 |
 |
| 'Liberty Leading The People', Delacroix, Oil on Canvas, 1830 |
Later that month I visited the
Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge in order to gain some more inspiration, and
came across a Turner exhibition. I appreciated the high quality of
the small paintings, and the non-illusionist texture on some of the
landscapes worked beautifully with the naturalistic colours, but the
subject of landscapes did not interest me as much as some of the
other pieces did. My own work is often small, and people are quick to
criticise small paintings, equating size with talent, so it was
reassuring to my own tastes to see Turner's small and detailed
paintings you could lose yourself in. However, I do wish to
experiment with the size of my work, pushing the boundaries of what I
can achieve by making larger, and maybe even smaller, pieces. The Victorian
era pieces in the Fitzwilliam Museum were what interested me the
most, particularly the museum's architecture and several pieces of
furniture. Two cabinets from this time period were my favourite
articles, with the colour of the dark wood and ageing metal accents
looking beautiful in a grayscale camera filter. The Victorian era in
itself interests me, and Victorian photography and artwork is
something I wish to explore further in my artwork. The museum as a
whole had a different feel to it than others I've been in, such as
big London galleries or the Louvre, whereby the rooms were smaller
and the pieces more cobbled together in their organisation. There was
a juxtaposition of time periods, styles and materials that made the
building unique to explore. A small room containing black and white
sketches, some half-finished, by artists such as William Blake, was
also a favourite of mine. The room held etchings and drawings, and I
loved seeing how bracelet shading and cross-hatching can be used.
There was a haunting feel to these small drawings and etchings that I
feel cohered with the nostalgic Victorian building.
 |
| One of my favourite cabinets at the museum |
 |
| Greyscale shot of the architecture of the windows |
No comments:
Post a Comment