Diana and Actaeon (1556-9), Titian: The Norwich Edition

Being somebody who is paid to teach children the very basics in literacy – with the most recent focus aptly being on those darned VCV words – AND something of a Renaissance-worshipper, the fact that I have been calling today’s featured artist ‘T-ee-tian’ – as opposed to the phonetically correct ‘T-i-tian’ – is no less than mortifying. I can only beg for your forgiveness and ask that you take me seriously for the rest of the impending spiel.

Norwich has undoubtedly upped its game in terms of artistic offerings. I mean a Titian, in sleepy, backward Norfolk – the communication black hole of the UK – amazing. (How did they physically organise this when the mobile phone reception and broadband connections are practically pre-historic?! ) But then, let’s be honest with ourselves, what else can one expect from the self-professed ‘Fine City’; the Venice of England? The painting itself, Diana and Actaeon was kindly on loan from the prestigious National Gallery, London to the more humble setting of the Castle Museum, Norwich. The Castle Museum is much loved by all in Norfolk, being a favourite destination for school trips, therefore the news of Titian’s attraction being temporarily housed inside those medieval walls filled me with unbridled happiness. I simply had to take a peak…

Diana and Actaeon (1556-9), Titian, Oil on canvas, 185.5cm x 202.2cm – courtesy of artfund.org

Determined to leave the masterpiece until last, I busied myself with the exhibition filler, which firstly provided a bit of background for Titian’s work; and secondly supplied alternative interpretations of Ovid’s great Metamorphoses. One of these alternatives was London-based photographer, Tom Hunter‘s recreation of the mythical scene, featuring a scantily clad Kim Cattrall. Classic Cattrall. Now I’m not really one for casual nudity but I must admit, however, that I did find the comparison between the attenuated figures of Hunter’s recent piece juxtaposed with the voluptuous forms of Titian’s age thoroughly engaging. A stark look at how the attitude towards beauty has undergone a dramatic transformation in the last 500 years.

As far as the background on the work was concerned, we were fed with the details on Titian and also the original poem that the piece had been derived from. For the benefit of those not so well-aquainted with the Roman poet, Ovid, I shall give a brief rundown of events. During a usual day’s hunt, Actaeon (just your everyday Roman chap) happened to stray from his hunting party. In doing so he stumbled across the secret bathing place of Diana, virgin goddess of the hunt, a most unfortuitous mishap. Now Diana, aka Artemis, did not take too kindly to this intrusion; so much so that she bestowed a wonderful punishment upon dear Actaeon, one that would involve his transformation into a splendid stag if he ever spoke again. For a huntsman, you can imagine that this would be quite inconvenient: the hunter taking the place of the hunted. Another lesson learnt for all of us there, courtesy of those barmy – almost wrote balmy there, whoops – Greeks. Saying that, the only lesson I can see here is that either Diana/Artemis was what some would call an ugly beast, therefore was inspired by humiliation to punish Actaeon; or more likely, Actaeon was not worthy to cast his eyes upon a beauty so divine, so pure that if he ever spoke of this encounter to anyone, it would be the last thing he ever did. Except for safety’s sake, Artemis extended the silence to any word that he spoke about anything, you know, just in case.

One of Actaeon’s hounds that would later turn on him, Diana and Actaeon (1556-9), Titian, Oil on canvas, 185.5cm x 202.2cm – courtesy of artfund.org

Once I had had my fill of the pre-painting palaver, I finally (and tentatively, for there was an oddly tense atmosphere surrounding the painting) sidled up next to an elderly lady who appeared to be the guardian of the painting. She was a heavily-cloaked creature whose nose was hovering mere inches away from the 450 year-old surface – as if sharing in a whispered secret from the oils themselves. Seeking to imitate this apparently satisfying method of painting perusal, I too peeked and craned as far as my little neck could manage from the spot I’d rooted myself to, near the left corner of the piece (I wasn’t as brave as the aforementioned dear in strolling casually in front of the painting, perhaps due to the bench of judging eyes behind me, regardless of how captivating the moue of Diana happened to be).

The painting itself was every bit as beautiful as I’d hoped. The highly saturated colours and angelic forms, painted with the utmost of grace and ease, are just two of the trademarks typical of the Venetian legend. Looking more closely at the colours present in the piece, we will notice that red is certainly one of the predominant shades, linking both protagonist and antagonist. We can interpret this to thus signify the impending bloodshed of Actaeon, as a result of his transgression against the divine lady.  Next we turn to the periwinkle enshrouding one of the nymphs which, reflecting the true blue of the sky, we can interpret as a clear representation of the purity and femininity present within a crowd as chaste as this. These blue hues, paired with the crimson, present quite a startling contrast against the neutrality of the earthy sepia and ochre.

Close-up of nymph, Diana and Actaeon (1556-9), Titian, Oil on canvas, 185.5cm x 202.2cm – courtesy of artfund.org

One aspect of the piece I personally deem to be the most interesting is the inclusion of the black female tending to Diana, hastily tugging at the cloth to ensure the goddess regains her modesty due to being uncovered. One wonders why Titian made the decision to paint the female attendant amongst Diana’s naiad-like aides, and the resultant significance this had on the Renaissance world. This calls for a separate essay methinks… In addition, the interaction between the pup yapping furiously at the heels of Diana and the haggard hound belonging to Actaeon provides a great paradigm of hostility and affront: the overall themes of the piece.

Close-up of Diana and female attendant, Diana and Actaeon (1556-9), Titian, Oil on canvas, 185.5cm x 202.2cm – courtesy of artfund.org

On the whole, it was a great privilege to be able to view a genuine piece of Renaissance mastery, and at somewhere so close to home. But to the neatly placed comments book, inviting us to simper a grateful thanks for our stay at Hotel Titian, I must say no thank you. It’s true that the Castle Museum should be applauded for their efforts in managing to eke an entire exhibition out of this one great painting, however, I do not wish to kiss their medieval bottoms over it. Maybe that’s a bit harsh… One thing that did make me chuckle, though, were the twenty people clinging to the only seat in the room – as if walking around such a small exhibition required this agent of respite – appearing  as an island of middle-age pretenders amongst a sea of Renaissance finery.

Poppies (04/2012), R.Herman

Oil on linen canvas, 50cm x 50cm

This still life study was created using the old faithful, oil paints partnered with a new friend, the linen canvas. As it was a commission, I was initially going to base the piece on your run-of-the-mill google image of some poppies, however, I thought no, I am going to force myself to work from life. And I am so pleased I did, as I was able to get a proper feel for how the light – if a bit dingy – effected the overall appearance of the petals, creating a rather wonderful array of colours and shadows.

The composition is a bit of a Georgia O’Keefe rip off, mind – although minus the connotations with female genitalia… I don’t think my friend would be too pleased with that.

Grungier flowers (23/04/2012)

As before, but in black and white. Because I can 😉

Grungy flowers (22/04/12)

Some rather grubby-looking photographs, taken in that strange pre-storm light, of various flowers dotted around my house. Featured is that springtime favourite, the tulip (looking slightly sorry for itself), and the plant that sits in my room of which name escapes me (to be honest, I don’t think I ever knew its name).

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1840), Richard Rothwell

Here we are again, folks; another weekend, another long and boring post about a painting. Ah, I’m only kidding, I promise this one will be shorter! Today I will be guiding you in the way of Dublin Society School graduate and Royal Hiberian Academy member, Richard Rothwell. His works consist primarily of portraiture and genre pictures, but the work I will be focussing on is his study of novelist Mary Shelley, which can be viewed below. As usual I will provide you with a little background on the subject, followed by an analysis of technique, content, context and relevance to myself. All very lovely.

Shelley, despite having achieved such literary acclaim by the tender age of twenty three with her magnum opus, Frankenstein, had a woefully tragic life. She outlived three of her four children and her husband, poet-cum-philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley, before finally facing her own mortality in the guise of a brain tumour, aged an equally tender fifty one – this is one woman who knew pain and knew it intimately. Upon reading her lengthy biography on that fine site Wikipedia, I will admit I was close to tears. I’m serious, this extract from her despairing husband’s notebook after the death of their third child is so agonisingly heart-felt it hurts:

‘My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone,

And left me in this dreary world alone?

Thy form is here indeed—a lovely one—

But thou art fled, gone down a dreary road

That leads to Sorrow’s most obscure abode.

For thine own sake I cannot follow thee

Do thou return for mine.’

After that dreary introduction, we’ll get down to the artwork itself. The painting above was completed by Rothwell in 1840, a year after Mary started suffering from symptoms of what was later discovered to be a brain tumour. Although those fresh, rosy apple cheeks of hers hint at youthful beauty; the haunted pallor, complemented by mournful, sunken eyes, serve as the testimony of a woman forced to live under the curse of perpetual mourning, and following that, personal affliction. This is perhaps reinforced in the way that Mary is holding herself, which appears to be quite awkward; her right shoulder hunched above her left forcing her to hold her head and neck in a somewhat serpentine ‘S’ shape. Not an unattractive woman, her slight, birdlike features – the gently pointed nose and swan-like neck – emerge from the gloom as if a rare and exquisite nocturnal creature. The overall eerie feel of the piece does bare resemblance to the literary stylings of the subject, whose repertoire includes gothic tales of dark, experimental science and apocalyptic sci-fi.

When addressing the colouring of the painting, it is easy to first notice the predominant black appeal of the outfit – undoubtedly referencing the succession of unbearable losses that Mary has had to endure – as well as the humility of the muted surroundings; presenting themselves to the audience under no pretence of opulence or grandeur – perhaps signifying the poverty of her latter years. The dark russet waist-band again signifies sorrow and seriousness, and being an autumnal colour, the subsequent ‘autumn years’ of the sitter. The flame red and vermillion tones of the chair could signify her political seat -one of Romanticism and Liberalism -as Mary was well-known for presenting her political views across in her writing.

Rothwell’s style creates an expressive yet careful rendition of the human form, with hints of Classicism (in the study of the face) and the burgeoning influence of Romanticism (shown through Rothwell’s choice of subject – a major player, not only in Gothic, but also in Romantic literature), which was starting to gain a strong hold over the arts at the time. This is particularly true if one views Mary as the heroic figure: an intelligent and strong female overcoming the trials of a tragic life in order to emerge triumphant as a literary genius. Or something like that. Where tremendous care appears to have been taken in the portrayal of Mary’s delicate face, half of that care is evident in the representation of her attire. Prime example being the joining of the flesh with the dress, where we can see a rather faltered marriage of paint with canvas, and no matter how firm I set my mind against it, my eye inevitably strays over to and pauses at this artistic misdemeanour. And now yours will too. Sorry.

If I am to learn anything from Rothwell’s approach to painting, it would be how he uses colour and earnest facial expressions to evoke a sympathetic and sincere atmosphere about his subject, thus causing the viewer to feel warmly and gently beckoned into the company of his sitter. Well, that’s what I think anyway.

Well-next-the-Sea, Norfolk (12/04/2012): NOW IN FULL COLOUR!

Just to prove to you people that it isn’t all ‘doom and gloom’ when it comes to my photography (check out the morbid state of my monotonic pictures below. Depressing aren’t they?), I have added four more shots from the Wells trip for your pleasure, but this time in full 24-bit true colour, baby. Notice the heavily saturated, sickly green-tinted appearance; vaguely resemblant of those cross-processed slide films we’ve all experimented with as part of a bid to be one of that painfully cool Lomography crowd. Enjoy.

Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk (12/04/2012)

Here are a few snaps taken from a little jaunt up to the seaside sanctuary of Wells-next-the-Sea, situated humbly on the North Norfolk coast. Please bear in mind that, despite it being a gloriously sunny day, the wind-chill factor was something ridiculous like a cool -30 celsius. Combine that with my pathetic circulation and we have ourselves a bad case of the ‘numbies’ (a slow deadening of the fingers). As I was unable to feel where the shutter was when taking most of these shots, I was therefore having to employ a masterful technique involving slapping wildly about the top of the camera in order for finger and shutter to miraculously connect. Mare.

All Saints, Mattishall (04/2012)

‘Twas a rain-ragged evening when I stumbled across this gem of a photo opportunity. Incidentally, I happened to have my trusty Nikon D90 on me whilst driving around my home village, which was a relief when I noticed the amber glow of the church light bursting cheerily out against the dull, heavy grey of the dusk sky. It was so exciting I just had to stop and steal the scene for myself to keep.

Gertrude Elizabeth (née Blood), Lady Colin Campbell (1897), Giovanni Boldini

Please forgive my mal-attentiveness, dear reader, for I appear to have forsaken you in favour of Easter holiday pursuits. Fear not though, for Easter – and thus my shameful neglect of you – is drawing to a close. To account for my bad manners, I will resume my analytical-bumblings-that-are-an-excuse-for-Art History with a sneak peak at what Mister Giovanni Boldini has had to offer the art world.

Boldini originally caught my eye whilst I was strolling around none other than the National Portrait Gallery, with his rather seductive painting of that saucy minx, Gerty Campbell. Throwing off the shackles of restraint, with regards to anatomic representation, Boldini put to good use his somewhat flamboyant style when representing this fine fille. As the picture shows, Gertrude appears to be a voluptuous and opulent woman; clothed from head to foot in striking black; reclining luxuriously on a chaise longue, all the while making come-hither eyes at the viewer. Oh the marvellous life of the rich.

Now that you have been tugged away from her penetrative stare, I will commence by providing a little bit of background on our rather glamorous subject. On May 3rd 1857 the proud parents, Edmund Maghlin and Mary Amy, welcomed their unfortunately christened child, Gertrude Elizabeth Blood, into the world. The youngest of three, Gertrude grew up with her siblings on the family estate in the picturesque County Clare, south-west Ireland. It was at the tender age of twenty-three that she met her soon-to-be hubby, Lord Colin Campbell whilst on a social visit to Scotland in the October of 1880. Ten months later, no sooner had she become Lady Colin Campbell, was our Gerty to discover that her beloved was of a particularly sickly disposition, sporting what some have later said to have been a bad case of syphilis. Nice one Col. Once the beautiful Lady had been enlightened to the infection she was now playing host to, it is needless to say that divorce was the consequence – although this was not fully processed until five years after the wedding, during which time Lord Colin accused his wife of four separate bouts of extra-marital relations. Can you wonder at it though, knowing what he had lured the poor lass into?!

The newly single Gertrude Blood next turned her attention to, and subsequently became a dab hand at, journalism. Despite her peers deeming her as quick-witted, intelligent, beautiful and athletic; she was to remain constantly under the looming shadow of the messy divorce trial and shameful allegations that were a result of her troubled marriage. In 1886, Gertrude’s potential as a worthy subject for painting first became recognised when she was requested to pose for James Abbott McNeill Whistler in the portrait Harmony in White and Ivory: Portrait of Lady Colin Campbell – this was one in a series of paintings depicting beautiful women in the varying neutral tones of white. However, due to unknown circumstances, this study is no longer with us. Eleven years on from this and we find ourselves face to face with Giovanni Boldini’s above tribute to the then forty-year-old gentlewoman.

With that hefty back story now firmly behind us, we can start to look at the actual artwork. Composition-wise, it is of a fairly simple structure, with the figure cutting a rather pleasant ‘S’ shape from top to base of the canvas; both suitably enticing and seductive. One thing that initially catches the eye is the positioning of the legs. They are not what one would expect to look like in a painting of a woman, as they are slightly apart. There is still a hint of delicacy and reserve, however, but more so a nod to the masculinity and power attributed, no doubt, from her sporting pursuits and noteworthy career.

Moving on to the threads of dear Gerty, we can see that she is very much a champion of the LBD (‘L’ being ‘large’ in this case, as opposed to ‘little’), complete with plunging neckline (showing us that, even at forty, she has still ‘got it’) and spray of flowers (expressing, ‘Yes, I may be a strong female, but I still have a hint of dainty damsel about me and a taste for the pretty things.’) – Below is another example of Boldini’s work, entitled Profile of a Young Woman (date unknown), featuring the trademark petit bouquet and crisp, graceful clothing – But yes, back to the dress; in all its sombre Morticia Adams-esque extravagance there is definitely a high degree of classical beauty about it. Notice the folding of the drapery in all its splendour, tumbling gently down those statuesquely long legs of hers. Team that with the simple gold bangles encircling each wrist and we have ourselves quite the Grecian goddess; one that even Titian would have been honoured to represent.

When faced with a portrait featuring predominantly funereal colours, it is easy for one to cling to the notion that the subject is steeped in tragedy. It is true that Gertrude was essentially given a death sentence by her generous husband, therefore one could easily put two and two together in order to describe her post marital life as one waiting to die from a then increasingly painful and ultimately fatal disease. But, in terms of what Boldini was trying to show in his piece, I don’t believe this to be the case. Arguably her most successful days, and consequently happiest, were those spent after her divorce; the post-Colin days being more of an awakening than a quietening. A more plausible theory, perhaps, would be that the colour black relates instead to the authority she commanded as a result of her individual achievements – think black-belt in Karate, the highest possible honour.

Boldini’s typical painting style is an multifaceted one, consisting of a myriad expressive brushstrokes, centring on a carefully illustrated face; the porcelain colouring of the skin contrasting sharply with the darkened tones of the attire; the dainty head perched atop an exuberantly painted body – see how the proportions are slightly mismatched in his study of Gertrude. I really love the overall energetic feel of the paintings, one which has the viewer swept up in a whirlwind of glamour and femininity. The focus is then gently settled onto the facial expression: the piercing yet flirtatious gaze of the lady, complete with a knowing smirk playing about those pert lips. InGertrude Elizabeth, the former suggests a reference to her inquisitiveness as an interviewer; the latter to her famous lightening sharp wit.

All in all, we have a superbly interesting lady immortalised by an equally superb man: a man who clearly has a talent for portraying women in a way that demonstrates excellent reverence and understanding.

WW1 Tank (03/2012), R. Herman

WW1 Tank, graphite pencil on cartridge paper, 30 x 20cm

A present for somebody who has an unhealthy fascination with tanks.