Thursday 25 June 2015

Was it as nice when it was new?

My dad used to say, "It must have been nice when it was new", on visits to museums.  I seem to remember being in a gallery and the lady attendant getting quite upset by his remark. What did he mean?  It was, (whatever we were looking at), quite beautiful now, she said.  

One section of Defining Beauty: the body in ancient Greek art at the British Museum made me think that some things were not as nice when they were new.  Replicas statues were painted in the bright colours as they would have been decorated originally. We are so used to ancient statues in smooth, monochrome marble or patinated bronze, that despite the evidence to the contrary, most people today would probably say they prefer them as they are now.  It is a great reminder that the definition of beauty can change over the centuries but it did give an insight into the textiles the figures might have worn.

Not surprisingly there were few other textiles depicted throughout the exhibition, as a large number of the statues were male nudes. Whilst the Persians and Assyrians believed nudity was only for the portrayal of the defeated enemy, the ancient Greeks believed it to be a symbol of rightousness.  Men had to be fighting fit and the idealised statutory was a symbol of not only their personal strength but the strength of their individual societies.  There were some textiles (albeit marble and bronze depictions of), to be found. The drapery that was in evidence on the female figures suggested fabrics of a gossamer fineness that must have been very beautiful in real life.

It was an exhibition worth seeing, especially to admire the technical expertise of the craftsmen (or women) who could turn stone into flesh.  It also explained why such works were so radical, when now they are considered so classical.  Sadly few of the Greek originals survive and many were copies - but copies by Romans so still pretty ancient.

The exhibition continues until 5 July 2015.



Thursday 18 June 2015

A wikiwiki* look back over 800 years

When I booked our visit to the British Library exhibition Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy, I had not noticed it would coincide with the anniversary of its signing.  The exhibition definitely made it easier to understand Magna Carta a little more, but more importantly why it is thought relevant today. The exhibition explains why the charter was created in the first place but also how it has been used (and mis-used) in the 800 years since.  The exhibition ended with two copies of the charter - one of which had been damaged by fire, but suffered much greater damage at the hands of a 19th century archivist who tried to rescue it.

The illuminated manuscripts on display were some of the highlights of the exhibition, but we were also interested to see some embroidered textile items.  They included the vestments of Archbishop Walter (died 1205) and a fragment of the shroud that was used at the burial of King John (died 1216) - the king who signed the original charter.





The textile that we had particularly gone to see though was a 21st century one, and outside the main exhibition - Magna Carta (an embroidery) by Cornelia Parker.  I had seen it quickly on a previous visit to the library, but this time had longer to look at it more carefully.  Even though the text, on first glance, looks rather standardised, when examined carefully shows inconsistencies and variations that reflect the individuality of the people who stitched it.  The pictorial elements, embroidered by members of the Embroiderer's Guild, were little masterpieces of their own.




In the evening we were booked for a discussion organised by the British Library, between Cornelia Parker and Jimmy Wales (co-founder of Wikipedia) and led by Roly Keating (British Library Chief Executive).  It was really interesting to hear the thought behind this work, but also to hear about Wikipiedia and its creation - why it is how it is.  At the end of the evening, we were able to buy a book about the project and, as a remembrance of our day, asked Cornelia and Jimmy to autograph it.


Cornelia Parker's work is on display at the British Library until 24 July and is free to visit - it is  hoped it will tour, but details are still to be finalised.  The Magna Carta exhibition continues until 1 September (see the website for admission charges, etc).

*Wikiwiki -  a Hawaiian word meaning "very quick" (source - J Wales)


Thursday 11 June 2015

Growing Colour

Over the last year or so I have become a regular visitor to Cressing Temple Gardens, in Essex (UK) in particular their Walled Garden.  Created to represent a garden from the Tudor era, it includes knots, a medicinal section, a nosegay garden, a potager and a flowery mead.  One of my favourite sections is the dye garden.  




This is the woad plant (isatis tinctoria) as it is currently (June 2015), in the garden at Cressing.  It has a history as a dye plant that goes back to neolithic times, and until the discovery and importation of indigo (indigofera tinctoria) from Asia was the only way of dyeing cloth blue in England for thousands of years.  For many centuries it was also needed for dyeing green - cloth was first dyed blue and then over-dyed with yellow.  It is one of the reasons that early textiles such as tapestries, change so much with age - the yellow dye is not so fast and as it fades, anything that was once green reverts to blue.

By the 16th century, most blue cloth was dyed with imported indigo.  Woad, although still home grown, was used mainly for the fermenting process needed to create a usable dye (see John Edmonds book The History of Woad and the Medieval Woad Vat.)

One of my special interests is the tokens of the 18th century foundling hospital - notes and objects left with infants brought to the hospital, many of which were fabric.  A large number of the pieces of fabric were taken from the children's clothing and many cottons and linens are blue and white stripes and checks.  These simple, rather plain snippets of fabric are not at first sight, the most interesting of the fabrics, but when you realise how many people and hours of work were needed for the creation of every piece of cloth it is a reminder that their use as tokens is only one small part of their story. Not only for the process of dyeing, but time and manpower was also needed for spinning and weaving, which until industrialisation would have been done on home based looms.  Then there was the peril of the sailors who brought indigo from Asia to dye the threads blue, and of course there is the manufacture of the cotton which depended on the despicable slave trade.

So when I looked at this unassuming plant all this came to my mind, and it was just one plant in a whole garden on historical (sometimes textile related) stories.  The garden has a whole host of other dye plants and the garden is free to visit all year around.  The Foundling Museum in Brunswick Square, London is the place to visit to find out more about the tokens.

Saturday 6 June 2015

Sonia Delaunay at Tate Modern


Yesterday I went with friends to the Sonia Delaunay retrospective at Tate Modern.  The exhibition started with works from her early years, at the turn of the 20th century, when she was inspired by the Fauvist exhibition at the Salon d'Automne and finished with works from the 1970s.  Her early works were colourful figurative pieces inspired by artists whose nick-name meant "wild beasts" because of their controversial (then) use of strong, brash colours.

Delaunay was born in 1885 in Odessa in the Ukraine.  At the age of five she was adopted by a wealthy uncle, Henri Terk and it was in this new life that she was introduced to museums, galleries and the St Petersburg bourgeoisie.  She studied art in Germany then moved to Paris.  She divorced her first husband to marry artist Robert Delaunay in 1910.  

As was usual for any woman in the early 20th century, when children arrived her priority became the home but she never stopped being an artist, just turned her home into a living gallery.  One of her early pieces on display is a bed cover made for baby Charles.  Quilters may not be impressed by her quality of stitch but her interest was in the use of colour and texture.  An early dress and waistcoat on display showed how she could bring her art into her everyday life, and turned herself into an artwork.

As well as colour, which both she and her husband experimented with, she was also inspired by modern life - including electric light, which was very new.  Music and dance were other major influences, in particular tango and flamenco.  She never forgot her Kroatian heritage but was also inspired by other countries she visited or lived in, in particular travels in Portugal and Spain.  

She collaborated with writers and poets, (I particularly liked the idea of her "poem-dresses") and designed costumes for Sergei Diaghilev of Ballets Russes.  The war prevented the family's return to France, and also meant the loss of her income from her Russian family, so she used  her design talents for a new income and opened Casa Sonia in Madrid.  She designed accessories, furniture and fabrics, which she sold at Casa Sonia and which were bought by the city's aristocracy.  Many of her textile designs, fabrics and costumes were included in the display at Tate.

As you walked through the galleries, her work became less and less figurative and more and more abstract.  One of her particular interests was how to interpret movement and the passing of time in her paintings.

Robert died in 1941 but Sonia continued to work into the 1970s.  She died in Paris, aged 94, in 1979 - the later works on display dated from the 1960s and 70s.  She also designed tapestries.

This is an interesting exhibition, not only showing the development of ideas but also showing how changes and challenges in Sonia's life influenced her creativity.

The exhibition continues until 9 August 2015 at Tate Modern, London.



Thursday 4 June 2015

Poor, patient Griselda and Portia of Venice

Since last autumn, I have been studying Renaissance art, and as the final part of the course I had to choose an art work to research and write about.

My chosen piece was a set of three panels in the National Gallery, London, painted by the Master of the Story of Griselda.  The three panels are thought to date from 1494 and made as wall decorations (spalliere), commissioned for the double wedding of two Spannocchi brothers in Siena, Italy.

In brief, the story of Griselda, is of a poor girl who after being chosen by a wealthy marquis as his bride, is tested, quite cruelly, before he decides she is the perfect woman for him and they (supposedly) live happily ever after.  

Poor Griselda goes from rags to nothing (literally), before being presented by a beautiful set of robes as befits any marquis' bride in the late fifteenth century.  This is depicted in the centre of the first panel (titled Marriage - NG912) by the Master of Story of Griselda.  


In Renaissance art you are supposed to tell a lot about a person by their clothes - and this is particularly important in the story of Griselda.  One of the themes of Griselda is that whatever she wears, her peasant gown, just a shift, or her red silk and gold embroidered wedding gown, she remains the same - virtuous, patient and obedient, ie for the time, the "perfect" woman.  (The debates about the rights and wrongs of this are still endlessly discussed seven hundred years since the story was first written down.)

One of the things I was thinking, while I was looking at this image daily, was how would such a dress look in real life.  Three days after handing in my final essay, I got a better idea, when I went to a performance of the Merchant of Venice at The Globe Theatre in London.  Portia came on first in a gown of black and gold, and later in red and gold - not very different from that of Griselda.  Even in the drizzle it shone and sparkled - it would have been dazzling in candlelight.

To see the full panels in their entirety you can see them on the gallery website, but they are better seen in person.