Post-Christmas, it was time for a bit of quiet. The exhibition was 'Modernism in Britain in the 1930s' - when artists including Piet Mondrian and Naum Gabo left the possibility of war in continental Europe, joining artists including Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson in Britain.
Given the uncertainty of the times, and perhaps from this distance, the works are strangely calm and comforting. In the 1930s, perhaps they were more confronting. Even so, none of these works imagine the horror and destabilisation that was to come, in Europe and in Asia. These works are quiet explorations of space.
Outside, on the Thames Embankment, the afternoon was black and bleakly cold. I made this drawing quickly, and went home to be warm.
Thursday 30 December 2010
Tuesday 21 December 2010
Heathrow is shut: rebooking flights in Cromwell Road, and the V&A
Well, I was supposed to fly on Sunday night, but Heathrow was iced-in. Monday morning held a visit to the airline office in Cromwell Road. 'You can try your luck on the wait-list tonight, if you go to the airport.' I was there with about 500 others in a long queue. Tuesday morning: back to the airline office and, success, a flight later tonight. What luck! I'll be home for Christmas.
In this part of town, and with a few hours to spare, I went to the Victoria & Albert Museum. This is such a treat - curiosity cabinets, western sculptures and tapestries, Asian artefacts and an exhibition of Buddhist sculpture in Asia. There were Buddhas, bodhisattvas and guardians from South Asia - Pakistan, India and Nepal - and from East Asia - China, Tibet and Japan.
The Indonesian temple of Borobudur, in Central Java, is apparently one of the largest. Every year, with chanting and lanterns, monks celebrate the birth, enlightenment and passing of Gautama the Buddha. The statues and reliefs are elaborately carved, the imagery moving from the mundane to the divine with the ascent of each terraced level.
Leaving the V&A, I caught the underground to Temple, and stood near the camel benches on the Embankment, apparently a reference to the 1916 Imperial Camel Corps. While I drew this cormorant, lunchtime joggers splashed behind me through the slush.
In this part of town, and with a few hours to spare, I went to the Victoria & Albert Museum. This is such a treat - curiosity cabinets, western sculptures and tapestries, Asian artefacts and an exhibition of Buddhist sculpture in Asia. There were Buddhas, bodhisattvas and guardians from South Asia - Pakistan, India and Nepal - and from East Asia - China, Tibet and Japan.
The Indonesian temple of Borobudur, in Central Java, is apparently one of the largest. Every year, with chanting and lanterns, monks celebrate the birth, enlightenment and passing of Gautama the Buddha. The statues and reliefs are elaborately carved, the imagery moving from the mundane to the divine with the ascent of each terraced level.
Leaving the V&A, I caught the underground to Temple, and stood near the camel benches on the Embankment, apparently a reference to the 1916 Imperial Camel Corps. While I drew this cormorant, lunchtime joggers splashed behind me through the slush.
Tuesday 14 December 2010
A visit to the Courtauld Gallery
A little late - the weekend was busy with essays and exam prep.
But by Tuesday it was all over. I went to Somerset House to the exhibition of Cezanne's pipe smoking, card playing peasants. A lovely exhibition, preliminary drawings and character sketches beside final paintings. The artist at work.
Somerset House is also a treat - numerous exhibitions among the government offices, complex architecture of stairways and light wells, sculptures redolent of the Navy Board (an early tenant) and now, in winter, ice-skating in the courtyard. Apparently there are tombs downstairs, and a Catholic chapel from the 1600s.
I spent an afternoon once in Taman Prasasti in Jakarta, the park of memorial stones, complete with hearse, which offers a history of Europeans in tombstones from about 1690. There are monuments to military men with elaborate coats of arms and carved stone drums and bugles, governors, officials of the Dutch East India Company, a bishop, Olivia Marianne, the wife of Thomas Stamford Raffles, wealthy landowners, and scholars of theology, the Ramayana and archaeology.
At this time of year, Somerset House has a less tropical ambience. In search of sunshine again, I wandered down to the Embankment and made a drawing near Waterloo Bridge.
But by Tuesday it was all over. I went to Somerset House to the exhibition of Cezanne's pipe smoking, card playing peasants. A lovely exhibition, preliminary drawings and character sketches beside final paintings. The artist at work.
Somerset House is also a treat - numerous exhibitions among the government offices, complex architecture of stairways and light wells, sculptures redolent of the Navy Board (an early tenant) and now, in winter, ice-skating in the courtyard. Apparently there are tombs downstairs, and a Catholic chapel from the 1600s.
I spent an afternoon once in Taman Prasasti in Jakarta, the park of memorial stones, complete with hearse, which offers a history of Europeans in tombstones from about 1690. There are monuments to military men with elaborate coats of arms and carved stone drums and bugles, governors, officials of the Dutch East India Company, a bishop, Olivia Marianne, the wife of Thomas Stamford Raffles, wealthy landowners, and scholars of theology, the Ramayana and archaeology.
At this time of year, Somerset House has a less tropical ambience. In search of sunshine again, I wandered down to the Embankment and made a drawing near Waterloo Bridge.
Sunday 5 December 2010
Bridget Riley at the National Gallery
There was new abstract work, painted directly onto the wall.
There was a film about influences - painters using colour in shape and direction - spoken by Bridget Riley.
There was a line of thought about perception as, after the Renaissance, painters moved away from belief in the existence of the traditional subjects of painting.
Abstraction in central Java has other meanings, printed on fabric - geometric patterns for the clothes of various types of court official and servant.
In batik shops in Jakarta, amongst the modern pieces, you can find metres of fabric with naive figurative patterns - farmers tilling rice fields, foreign armies with cannon, modern armies with tanks, kings hunting with their retinues, and the ultramodern motifs of the ultrarich - moguls playing golf, with their golf buggies.
Walking down to Jubilee Bridge the midday winter sun was blinding, ferociously hot, after a week of snow and ice. I made a drawing of sun.
There was a film about influences - painters using colour in shape and direction - spoken by Bridget Riley.
There was a line of thought about perception as, after the Renaissance, painters moved away from belief in the existence of the traditional subjects of painting.
Abstraction in central Java has other meanings, printed on fabric - geometric patterns for the clothes of various types of court official and servant.
In batik shops in Jakarta, amongst the modern pieces, you can find metres of fabric with naive figurative patterns - farmers tilling rice fields, foreign armies with cannon, modern armies with tanks, kings hunting with their retinues, and the ultramodern motifs of the ultrarich - moguls playing golf, with their golf buggies.
Walking down to Jubilee Bridge the midday winter sun was blinding, ferociously hot, after a week of snow and ice. I made a drawing of sun.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)