Showing posts with label Delacroix. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Delacroix. Show all posts

13/03/2014

Trip to the National Gallery of Ireland 2006



The following day I went to the National Gallery of Ireland with Carol. One of the great things about the National Gallery for me was that it was so familiar to me. I had visited it thousands of times, which meant that I could just go in to look at a half dozen paintings of my choice, without worrying that I was missing out on something. That day I saw some lovely English paintings by Hogarth, and Alfred Munnings (the arch Conservative painter of horses.) Munnings hated modern art, but he used the colorful pallet of the Impressionists, mixed with the tonal pallet of the academy. His painting of horses wading a stream was a beautiful fireworks display of colour especially in the colours of the water. Hogarth's portrait of a brother and sister was also beautifully painted in muted grays, and the under-pinning drawing was impeccable. The greatest thrill for me was to see a Modigliani reclining nude from 1917 - which was on loan. I loved Modigliani's paintings and the story of his brave life of bohemian decadence. Sadly, the recent film on his life that I had seen earlier in the year did not do him justice. Modigliani had talent to burn, and unfortunately he did indeed burn up a lot of his talent in drink, drugs, and passionate affairs with women. The nude on loan was beautifully painted in creamy rich thick opaque paint. In parts the under drawing could be detected - a loose but graceful line in thin black paint, over which he had scrubbed on a think creamy paste over the coarse grain of the canvas. The nude was painted in virtually one rich Orange/pink tone, and only subtle darker tones modelled the form. I loved this painting! It was scared on my mind!                                        


 Going around the National Gallery surrounded by such technically accomplished canvases, was both a joyful and humbling experience. It was joyful, because as a lover of art it was always a great pleasure to see works of such skill and beauty. But it was also humbling, because I realized just how far from this kind of technical genius I (or for that matter any modern painter) was. Modern art had many great qualities in which one could find pleasure. The main quality of modern art was originality. Artists of the modern age struggled to discover a style all of their own which could be recognized a mile off. Picasso, Warhol, Hirst all had their own styles, and it was their style that gave them a place in the art market. The technique was a secondary consideration, so that even if the work had technical sophistication and difficulty - it was only in the service of an idea of style - or artistic identity. But art before the late ninetieth century was first and foremost about technical skill of a supreme level. In the past an artist might only paint a dozen paintings a year, and sell them to a very local clientele. It was vital that every painting represent the artist at his very best, so many works were destroyed in case the public see the artists failures (for example Constable never showed his sketch's to the public, which was wise, as they might have thought him mad. Ironically though, in my day it was his sketches, which approached Impressionism that were most admired.) Where as in my day, art was a global business. The world was crammed with modern art museums and collections all of which wanted representative works by art stars - which led to over production and great variation in terms of the quality of works one saw.


However, there was really no point in expecting things to change. We could not go back to paint like Rembrandt, our society had changed, our training as artists had changed and the way art was consumed had changed. I thought artists like Odd Nurdum proved this point. Odd Nurdum would never be Rembrandt - he would always be a pasticheur. Rembrandt did not look back - he looked forward, he was as much of a modernist in his time as Picasso was in his. There was nothing stale in Rembrandt - his work was alive because he was of his time and yet ahead of it. Nurdum on the other hand was sickening. There was a gimpish quality to his work because there was something fundamentally incomplete in his personality. Something you could never say of Rembrandt who was one of the fullest and most complete recorders of humanity, history had ever seen. Thus the genius of Dalí was his ability to turn his old masterish technical command to new and modern subjects. Dalí was as skilled a painter technically as any in history, but by placing these skills in the service of modern surreal observations and fantasizes he avoided becoming a pasticheur. 


Before I left the National Gallery, I bought the letters of Delacroix. Delacroix's journals, which I had read constantly for years, were along with van Gogh's letters the most beautiful and thought provoking insights into the creative mind I have ever read so I had high hopes for his letters, but they turned out to be less pithy. I also got a great Taschen book on Impressionism, which was only €9 because it was part of the 25th anniversary of Taschen. How would I have survived without Taschen! I still remember the day before Taschen, when one was delighted to buy a book with only a half dozen colour photographs!