Skip to main content

Art Galleries

I enjoy art galleries.  It’s not just the collections and how they are curated I find interesting but they are often sited in interesting buildings which can add to the enjoyment of the visit.  I will always try and find the most interesting gallery when I visit a new town and I have been privileged to be able to visit lots of prestigeous places around the world but recently I stuck to nearer home.  A couple of weeks ago I went to the Leeds Art Gallery.  This has been a favourite haunt of mine for a long time and in spite of it having various visiting exhibitions I continue to be drawn to my old favourite the Atkinson Grimshaws.  I love the evident influence of the pre-Raphaelite painters but they don’t look quite so ethereal.  as a Victorian painting, Autumn Glory - The Old Mill is still one of the best paintings in the gallery





I used to really like one of his more otherworldly paintings 'Iris', a fairy like creature with wonderfully painted iridescent wings but I think it must have been on loan to the gallery as I haven’t seen it for a long time.  Leeds art Gallery has a good selection of art to explore from Victorian portraits to modern Abstracts.  The Leeds art collection is housed in a beautiful Victorian, highly decorated space. The cafe and the Library are stunningly decorated with amazing Victorian tiles.  The gallery has a rather soulless addition built on, the Henry Moore Institute which houses some wonderful sculpture including pieces from Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.
This time in the gallery there was textile artist exhibiting some wonderful pieces.  Caroline Achaintre has a number of large woven art works displayed, full of colour and texture.  A very modern juxtaposition to the beautiful Victorian gallery surroundings.




Today I went to the Baltic in Newcastle.  This gallery never ceases to amaze me.. my mum used to say 'different strokes for different folks' and I think its good we all have different tastes but I have never found anything in the Baltic to wow me ever.. Except of course the actual building...I keep going, ever hopeful that the space may be used more to my taste but the only thing that consistently appeals to me is the magnificent view from the viewing pod and the never ending stairs.  Today was no different - the exhibits on show, selected works by B. Wurtz, and 'Bill Murray: a story of distance, size and sincerity' by Brian Griffiths left me cold.  The installation -' Alice Theobald and Atomik Architecture' was marginally more interesting.  I think it’s a real shame that such wonderful space goes to (in my opinion only) waste.  The cafe is quite nice though....



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful.   There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...
1 comment
Read more

Autumnal Garden Days

I love these (rare) warm sunny late summer days and there is all sorts of lovely things  going on in my garden... I counted 12 red admiral butterflies whizzing around the over grown ivy which I had been about to hack down but then left until the flutterbies have finished with it... The late blooms add a dash of colour and the daisy strewn lawn is littered with autumnal leaves, debris from my brief half an hour of slash and burn and the stone wall is covered in glorious soft moss all shiny and tactile with a few late nasturtiums loitering. I've hacked out the brambles for this year, sadly I missed the fruit as we were away, ditto the strawberries, we never seem to get the fruit before the birds so I've made space and moved the plants that were getting swamped and so not performing to their potential - hopefully next year they will literally blossom now they have light and room to flourish.
Post a Comment
Read more

Goodbye Dissertation!!!

The dissertation is finished...  it took me ages to do all the detail stuff Harvard referencing ect... the simplest tasks were starting to drive me mad!! I cant believe how long it took me to work out how to number pages excluding the first two pages aagghhhh...  I suppose I should be grateful that its not like the olden days where you had to get it typed and bound before hand in - this essay has been a hard slog, a subject which I felt was interesting - how the digital explosion is ruining traditional creative methods turned into a fairly unexciting - pretty boring unexceptional topic!  there will never be a next time but my advice is think of something funky - does Danny Boyle like garden Gnomes - Racoon meets Lady Gaga - anything that might surprise you but not too grown up!! I have worked hard and will be rewarded with a mid grade because there is no passion in this essay - the hard slog is evident as is the lack of enthusiasm - C'est la vie you cant win them all....
Post a Comment
Read more