Whistler

This week we visited the Huntarian Art Gallery. I enjoy going back every so often to see the Whistler collection and a few other special pieces. Often there is a special exhibition and I never cease to be amazed when I find something new to see in a work I've seen a dozen time before.

Anyone who knows the work of the American artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903) will have their favourites (assuming they like his work). His most iconic works (I think) are his life-size portraits which started with The Symphony in White No 1. The Hunterian has a significant number of these portraits. However whilst they are wonderful works (they have a vaguely Pre-Raphaelite feel about them which attracts me) far and away my favourite work is a small portrait apparently unusually done in one sitting entitled Dorothy Seaton, A Daughter of Eve (1903).

There are a great many versions of this image on the internet including an enlargable one on the Hunterian website at the last link I have given .

This is how I see it:

Faces

Yesterday we went to the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery. I love going there and have blogged about it many times. Today I looked, as I always do, at some of my favourite paintings by The Glasgow Boys and then, whilst listening to the afternoon organ concert, wandered around the gallery on the first floor looking at familiar sculptures and, in particular, at the faces. I have probably blogged about these statues before but when I concentrated on the faces I could just concentrate on the emotions captured in the materials.

This face is from a statue entitled The Sunflower carved in Portland Stone by Gilbert Ledward in about 1932.

I don't think that I've ever shown this one before. It's entitled Paul and Virginia  and was carved in about 1841 by William Calder Marshall. It depicts a scene from a French poem with Paul carrying his devoted playmate over a raging river. She later dies at sea and Paul dies of a broken heart.

 

The next is a bronze cast for a gravestone. It is entitled Memorial to a Marriage by Patricia Cronin. The explanation follows the picture.

Syrinx (the beauty who attracted the unwanted advances of Pan in Greek mythology) by William Macmillan was awarded the accolade of Best Sculpture of The Year in 1925 by the Royal Society of British Sculptors.

The Spring Tide of Life by Robert Colton in 1903 depicts the children gazing from the crest of  wave as if into a wonderful future.

Of course anyone who has followed my blog for any length of time knows of my love for the sculpture entitled Motherless by George Anderson Lawson (1832 - 1904).  Few sculptures show more emotion than this.

Lastly is the face of the Rt Hon the Lord Macfarlane of Bearsden KT who was chairman of the Kelvingrove Refurbishment Committee amongst many other things.  I just thought that it was an 'interesting' face. When we had finished wandering we went down to the restaurant for coffee. I showed Anna the photo and asked her if she know who it was. "Of course" she replied "I was sitting near him at (her granddaughter's) school production recently." That was not an answer I had expected but it reminded me of the six degrees of separation which states that everyone in the world can, supposedly, be linked with everyone else in not more than six steps.

Kelvingrove Revisited

On my way home from New Zealand nearly a month ago I stopped off in Glasgow for a few days with Anna.  One of the things I love doing in Glasgow is visiting the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery.  So, not for the first time, I shall post a few of my favourite things which some of you will have seen before.

Behold The Sea

I love the sea. That's no secret. I live by the sea. Rarely does a day go by when I don't sit and watch it. The moods of the sea are as many and as varied as the moods of the sky. I love the sky too. In Eagleton, in particular, I live with BIG skies; 360 degree skies.

Some years ago when I was in The National Gallery in London I saw a painting by Akseli Gallen-Kallela entitled Lake Keitele and I was mesmerised by the patterns in the water.

Lake Keitele by Alseli Gallen-Kallela

I see similar patterns quite frequently in The Minch from my Study window:

A Day in Glasgow

Written: Tuesday 14th June

The Nighthawk went into the Car Hospital today at 0800 so I was left with no transport.  I caught a bus (one of those big things which hold lots of people, stops a lot and swarm all over the City) from the Hospital into the City Centre and then caught another one out to The Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery.  Anna came there for lunch and then took me to collect the Nighthawk.

When I got into the City Centre first thing this morning (ie around 9am) I decided to have some breakfast.  On Sauchiehall Street I found Bradford's Tea Room (it's also a bakery) with a very enticing menu.  Like so many of these places in the UK it promised much more than it delivered.  Its bacon roll might have been delicious but as they had no Earl Grey tea and the coffee came in a paper cup I declined their offer and went elsewhere.

I was once a member of the former Scottish Royal Automobile Club (an old-fashioned Residential  Club in Blytheswood Square in the centre of Glasgow).  As it had closed some years ago I wondered what had become of it.  Well it is now The Blytheswood Hotel and a very exclusive place it is too.

 

The SRAC Arms are still on the wall

'Motherless' about which I have blogged before.

Portrait Head by David Gauld about 1895.  Out of the thousands of pictures this one always captures my heart

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From the sublime to the ridiculous!

At 1pm most days there is an organ recital.

A Visit to Chester's Grosvenor Gallery

CJ and I went to Chester today.   After parking in the City Centre multi-storey car park (I had to use my bank card to get out - I'm not used to these city prices) we found ourselves a superb coffee stop at the Tudor House Café in Lower Bridge Street, did our cross-word and set off for the Grosvenor Museum.  Our expectations were not that great so imagine our surprise when after several hours we pronounced ourselves very well pleased with the experience.

There was a lot for the dozens of school children who were there to do and see and it is clearly a very popular educational venue.  For me the art galleries were the most enjoyable although, oddly, I learned two things: that the Romans had quite ingenious locks and how to use an abacus with Roman numerals.  I had hoped to blog about the locks but I couldn't get decent photos so I shall store that away for another time.

I was fascinated to discover that Corncrakes (which are rare in the UK now although I can hear but never see them from the house in Eagleton) are smaller than I had imagined although the following photo doesn't give a good idea of their size (27 to 30 cm long):

Of the minerals on display I had never heard of Bornite which is also known as Peacock Ore because of its beautiful colour cause by copper content:

Our first encounter with 'fine' art was in the lecture theatre where, for me, the highlight was a huge (several metres high) oil painting: For God So Loved The World:

You have to stand on the opposite side of the lecture theatre to appreciate it though.

There was also a complete gallery devoted to the works of Louise Rayner (1832 to 1934) whose water colour with gouache pictures of Chester were exquisite.  I shall blog separately about them.

There was a gallery of works for sale and some of them were excellent too although the majority were not to my taste I confess.

I should also mention the Chester Silverware collection and the Victorian house although these were not of particular interest to me.

All in all a very worthwhile visit.

He Who Hesitates

I was at The Morven Gallery last week.  When I take visitors to Ness this is a ‘must stop’ place because the coffee and cake is excellent and there is so much to see and enjoy from paintings and other artworks of every price to more modest gifts for one’s self or others.  Last week when I was there I saw a painting.  I liked it.  But it had been an expensive month and it seemed like an extravagance.  I hesitated.  It was an extravagance.  I hesitated for the next couple of days.

The artist was someone I knew.  Past tense.  She was the partner of a friend.  When I’d known her then I had no idea that she painted.  She may not have done.  She sticks in my memory principally as the person who persisted in asking me how much I’d spent on my new bathroom.  I didn’t know exactly and said so.  After this had been pursued I decided it would cause less upset if I just told her an approximation.  The figure I gave was met with the comment that it was morally obscene to spend that much on a bathroom.

So spending several hundred pounds of a painting might have been viewed similarly because whilst I need a bathroom I don’t need artworks.

Eventually, however, I decided that my desire for this very attractive artwork was greater than my desire to be thrifty.  Too late.  Another admirer had beaten me to it.  Ah well.

A Fascinating Face

One of the portraits in the Kelvingrove M & A Gallery is this one.  When I first saw the portrait I didn’t know who had painted it and thought that it was a reasonably recent work because the expression seemed fairly modern.  I was quite surprised, therefore, to find that it was painted by David Gauld one of the Glasgow Boys about whom I shall be blogging separately during the next week.  The date?  1895, over a century ago.  The more I think about it, though, the more I realise that I’ve been around for quite a while and a century is not quite as long ago as I imagine.  Sobering thought.

A Study in Red

Froanna, the Artist’s Wife, 1937.

Wyndham Lewis painted this picture almost entirely in the colour red.  Red can make us think of warmth and he used tones – variations of the same colour – to create a feeling of intimacy and relaxation.

Still Life

Despite having a few still life pictures on my walls I’ve not really been a lover of the genre nor, to be hones, ever taken much interest in it or bothered to find out much about it.  However Katherine’s blog has had a number of postings on the subject which have made me more aware.  Consequently when I was in the Kelvingrove M & A G I looked  more closely at some of the very many on display.  I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed comparing them and the various techniques and thought behind the composition.  I never cease to be amazed at the changes blogging is making to my life.

 

Heads and Things

A few more of the exciting things I encountered at the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery included the display of armour and the fantastic heads from the exhibit ‘Expression’.

Warriors often cover their faces with visors or masks.  This gives protection but also frightens enemies by making the warrior look less human.  The blank visors above are especially chilling.

  

Expression