Exit Through The Giftshop - Postcards at an exhibition....

Another selection of postcards that have grabbed my eye at exhibitions and galleries...

1) THE RISEN CHRIST (1521) - Michelangelo

This was bought in the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva where Michelangelo's glorious statue stands between the main altar and the grave of artist Fra Angelo.  It is remarkable to be able to get so close to such a life-size wonder.

This is the second version of the statue that Michelangelo carved.  He had started the private commission in 1515 and had nearly finished it when he noticed the white marble had a black streak in it so stopped work on it and started afresh.  He created it in Florence and it was then moved to Rome.  The bronze loincloth was added later on, the bloody prudes!  The first version can still be seen in a Monastery near Viterbo in Italy although it was shown at the National Gallery in 2017.

2) SUNFLOWERS IN THE GARDEN AT PETIT GENNEVILLIERS (1885) - Gustave Caillebotte

 

This was bought at Madrid's Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza when I visited their lovely exhibition of paintings by the impressionist Gustave Caillebotte.  He is still under-appreciated, his best known works are evocative paintings of La Belle Epoque Paris.  He was not only a member of the original group of impressionists but also a patron of them.  Possibly his most famous painting is "The Floor Scrapers" showing three working men stripping the parquet off a Parisian apartment floor.

But Caillebotte also loved painting gardens and the outdoor locations around Petit-Grenevilliers, a suburb outside Paris where he had a house.  He moved there permanently three years after painting this rapturous painting of sunflowers crowding the foreground of his garden, you can almost feel the sun and the buzzing of bees.  Gustave came from a wealthy family and his painting slowed towards the end of his life as he found other interests to pursue.  Sadly he died of pulmonary congestion while working in his beloved garden, he was 45.

3) STROZZI CHAPEL, SANTA MARIA NOVELLA (1502) - Fillipino Lippi

Santa Maria Novella is the huge church which faces the main station in Florence and it was consecrated in 1420, 144 years after building started on it!  It's glorious marble frontage conceals many treasures within.

One being the Strozzi chapel that is beside the main altar which featues frescoes by Fillippino Lippi of scenes from the lives of the Apostles Philip and James.  Filippo Strozzi was a rich Florentine banker and statesman who commisioned this chapel and the Strozzi Palace near the Duomo but didn't live to see either completed but he is buried in the chapel. The paintings are very colourful and very Florentine!

4) GILBERT CANNAN AND HIS MILL (1916) - Mark Gertler

 

I bought this at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford to remember Gertler's wonderful painting of his friend, the writer Gilbert Cannan. The painting has the similar colours of orange, blue and whites that featured in his anti-war MERRY-GO-ROUND from the same year. Cannan had met Gertler through Lady Ottoline Morrell and, through him, also knew painters Dora Carrington and CRW Nevinson; Cannan later wrote a novel of the artists' complex love triangle. Cannan was living in the mill in Buckinghamshire at the time with his wife and two Newfoundland dogs Sammy and Luath.  

 

Think Luath looks familiar?  Cannan had been JM Barrie's secretary and in 1909 started a relationship with Barrie's wife Mary who felt neglected by him.  After a highly-publicized divorce case Gilbert and Mary married in 1910 - and Luath came along too.  Luath's claim to fame is she was the inspiration for Nana in PETER PAN.  In the same year, Cannan suffered a mental breakdown brought on by the stress of WWI and his marriage ended in 1918.  He suffered another breakdown in 1923 and spent the rest of his life in sanatoriums.  Gertler tragically killed himself in 1939.

5) THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON (1812) - Francisco de Goya

I bought this at the National Gallery's exhibition of Goya portraits.  I find Goya a bit tricky: overly florid and over-emphatic but I was taken with this simple chalk drawing of the Duke, possibly done as a run-up to his more detailed portrait in oils.  Wellington sat for Goya after he liberated Madrid through winning the Battle of Salamanca.

The drawing presents a Wellington different to the usual pomp and circumstance portraits of him, here he looks a bit more human, a bit more unprepared and natural, he was 43 at the time.  This is now in the collection of the British Museum while the oil painting is in the National Gallery collection.

Exit Through The Giftshop - Postcards at an exhibition....

More postcards from exhibitions and galleries...

1) THE FOUNTAIN, VILLA TORLONIA, FRASCATI, ITALY (1907) - John Singer Sargent

This came from the recent marvellous National Portrait Gallery exhibition of portraits by John Singer Sargent.  In this atmospheric study, a woman has perched herself onto a stone ballustrade to paint her canvas, dressed for the outdoors in her veiled hat and white coat and dress with her brushes arrayed beside her.  Her companion relaxes beside her and Sargent has captured him either humourously regarding her painting or closing his eyes for a nap.  Behind them the fountain of the painting's title splashes away, matching the white of their clothes and contrasting with the lush green trees beyond.  A painting I could stare at for hours...

2) THE REBELLIOUS SLAVE (1513-15) - Michelangelo

From the Louvre in Paris, this is one of the two in Michelangelo's series of slave staues that is not unfinished and seeming to break free from the block of marble that surrounds it.  Here a bound slave - with the all-important swath of material over his groin - strains and twists to escape his fate.  The similarity facially to his David statue is very noticeable.

3) PORTRAITS OF BATTISTA SFORZA AND FEDERICO DA MONTEFELTRO, DUKE OF URBINO (1465-72) - Piero della Francesca

A double portrait of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino with their city spread out behind them which is one of the many treasures in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.  Reality dictated their positioning as the Duke has lost an eye and was scarred on the right side of his face from a tournament which had also broke his nose.  The Duchess' jewels and brocaded dress accentuate her grave beauty.   Oddly the Duke and Duchess are also painted on the reverse on these double portraits in a different pose.

4) PORTRAIT OF GIACOMO DORIA (1533-5) - Titian

This imposing portrait by Titian confers on his sitter all the trops of power - the swaggering volumous black garment, the direct gaze of the merchant who was also a diplomat and the marble column he stands in front of.  This can be seen in Oxford's Ashmoleon Museum.

5) OH, JEFF... I LOVE YOU, TOO... BUT... (1964) - Roy Lichtenstein

One of Lichtenstein's classic Pop Art portraits in all it's garish Benday-dotted Magna colour, a picture that while celebrating the banalness of commercial art also holds it's own mystique.  Oddly enough, this exhibition felt unsatisfactory.

It's nice to have the odd adventure and last weekend Owen and I left London to simmer in the heat and took to the road (well, railway line) and visited Oxford for the day.

It was a bit of a time-travel moment for Owen as he went to college in Oxford at the end of the 70s for a short while before realising it wasn't for him and moving on. So it was interesting to walk around it with him as he kept up the mantra "this wasnt here then".

What was there was the tiny pub that he remembered drinking in listening to that heady combination of punk and disco on the jukebox, now very much changed but at least it was still there with a seeming emphasis on live music. Oddly enough this week we walked past the pub in Mayfair which was my 70s after-work drinkerie of choice - namely because the downstairs bar had a great jukebox packed with the same combination of punk and disco.We went round the Ashmolean Museum which was a nice way to waste an hour or so on a sizzling lunchtime. It had the requisite one-off work by famous painters as all regional galleries have but there were also some paintings that I had on my usual shopping list for when I am allowed to run around with a shopping trolley for 10 minutes namely an evocative John Singer Sargent parting of an Italian balustrade and I got my Bloomsbury fix with Mark Gertler's vividly bold portrait of Gilbert Cannan by his mill home with J.M. Barrie's dog Porthos who was the basis for 'Nana' in PETER PAN.They have a nice cafe in the basement too by the way.

Oxford was pleasant enough but I could hardly see any of it thanks to every building being about 4-deep in people - the place was MOBBED. I heard every dialect on God's earth on the streets - and in particular in the generic High Street... they were all there Next, WH Smith, Odeon, Pret A Manger, HMV, Caffe Nero, Sports Direct... all rather dreary.

Now Constant Reader, you really don't believe I went all that way just to look at shopfronts? Not then there is THE HARDER THEY COME playing at the Oxford Playhouse.

Yes it was time for my 7th visit to Ivan's ni-night and boy, were they a provincial, small matinee audience! Lines which have always met with BIG audience responses at best get smiles. All very discouraging but the cast still put their all into it and it was great to see Chris Tummings, Victor Romero Evans, Derek Elroy, Joy Mack, Marlon King and Jacqui Dubois for possibly the last time.
Anyways normal service was resumed at the end with the stalls up and hollering for more!

All in all, a very nice day out.