National Gallery
In a bid to get out of Oxford for the day, and to get a bit of culture, we went to the National Gallery yesterday. There were a couple of good exhibitions: Thomas Jones and Bosch and Bruegel.
Jones was a Welsh artist of the late 18th century, who travelled all over Italy painting landscapes. He started off with a typical (and to me rather uninteresting) 18th century âRoman ruins adorned by decorative goats and and milk maidsâ style of painting, but gradually moved to a strikingly-modern architectural style. A series of paintings in Napoli show peeling stuccoed walls, faded shutters and hanging laundry. He really captures the strong, heavy sunlight and dark shadows perfectly, and the images would not look out of place in a modern photographerâs work.
Next, we moved to the Bosch and Bruegel exhibition, which was crammed into a single small room. There were several variations on âThe Adoration of the Kingsâ (a nativity painting) by both artists which were quite interesting. There is always plenty to look at in their paintings, with chickens, bones and old shoes infesting the thatch of the stable. The colours are also still fantastically vivid and in wonderful condition, considering they were painted in the early 1500s. The most arresting painting for me was âThe Crowning of the Thornsâ, which you can see here. In this painting, Jesus is surrounded by four men pressing in toward him maliciously. One man holds the crown of thorns in his metal gauntleted hand, while anotherâwearing a spiked dog collarârests a hand on his shoulder in a menacing way. The menâs attention is focused on Jesus, their expressions malevolent and showing a rather sick anticipation of the suffering they are about to inflict. Meanwhile, Jesus looks out at the viewer, calm but drawing you into the painting. He seems to be saying, âYouâre part of this too, you know.â
Iâm not a religious person, but I found the painting rather disturbing. It made me think about modern torture. If you know that torture is going on in another country, and yet you turn away (because itâs too upsetting or because you donât want to believe that humans are capable of such cruelty), you areâin some senseâcomplicit in the act.
As a bit of light relief from this heaviness, we took a lightning tour around the rest of the permanent collection while we were there. It always amuses me how obsessed people get by famous paintings, irrespective of their merits. There were huge crowds of visitors clustered around on of Van Goghâs famous sunflower paintings, whileânot three paintings awayâthere was a much more beautiful painting of a wheat field (Wheat Field with Cypresses). The online version gets nowhere near to doing it justice, but it has a brilliant sense of movement and life in the thick swirls of paint that he applied straight from the tube. I found a similar thing in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence: big crowds around Botticelliâs âBirth of Venusâ (yawn) and no-one at all looking at the sublime and graceful âAnnunciationâ. The painting conveys the drama of situation beautifully, and I donât think that Iâve ever seen an angel who looks more likely to take off into the aether at any moment.
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"If you know that torture is going on in another country, and yet you turn away..." even worse is knowing that torture is endorsed and subsidised by a government i helped to put in power...
sigh
oh, wait, you were trying to lighten up...
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Okay, so I am from the dominions, right. But ... it seems odd to me to "get out of Oxford and get a bit of culture". Can't decide if that is a paradox or an oxymoron ... or someotherthing altogether.
by Julie @ 17/02/2004 1:02 pm • Permalink •
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stacy: Yes, I know what you mean. The UK government has sponsored plenty of dodgy regimes too, and probably still do. Itâs a very uncomfortable feeling.
Julie: Well, I didnât mean that the two things were mutually dependent
. Yes, there is plenty of culture in Oxford, but after youâve been round all the current exhibitions, you need to find a bigger city to explore. And it can start to feel a tiny bit claustrophobic after a while. Luckily, London is a cheap and short bus ride away, so day trips are quite feasible.
by bsag @ 18/02/2004 9:02 pm • Permalink •
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