'Portrait of the Artist' at the Queen's Gallery

A few weeks ago I popped into the Queen's Gallery on the side of Buckingham Palace (yes, *that* Queen and *that* palace) to see the exhibition' 'Portrait of the Artist'. This exhibition is all about portraits and self-portraits in the Royal Collection and the poster girl is Artemisia Gentileschi who is currently prominently featured in the Caravaggio exhibition at the National Gallery.

It's quite a small exhibition and is nicely laid out, a nice mix of drawings, prints and paintings from the last 600 years or so. One of the earliest is a portrait of a man either by Raphael, his pupils or by one of his pupils of Raphael. It's confusing. I certainly don't think this is by Raphael but it's a lovely painting, three-quarter face with a hazy landscape beyond. He looks a bit young to me but he was a prodigy. The quality of the painting and its preservation were wonderful, the frame looks like it was added later (a plain frame always works better on portraits so the emphasis is on the face) and I love the texture and folds of the under-shirt. Is this really the face of Raphael?  Part of me hopes it is but another part of me can't help but think he'd wear something more colourful.

There are some lovely portraits of the 'greats' in this collection. There's a great painting of a self-portrait of Elizabeth Vigee Le Brun by Leopold Dumini that he completed on his travels as an exercise and a marvellous self-portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds with 'wig glasses', i.e. glasses that stretched around his wig. Who knew such things existed or that people would paint portraits with them on. I walked past this painting and then had to take a few steps back to look at it again. Glasses? On Sir Joshua Reynolds? 'Wig' glasses? O yes, they had everything back then! They were (apparently) designed to go round the expanse of wig that men wore.

There were also a few enormous paintings that supposedly included portraits of artists. One of the biggest - and most unbelievable - was 'Cimabue's Madonna Carried in Procession' by Lord Frederic Leighton which is supposed to include portraits of both Cimabue and Giotto.

Given that no-one knows what either Cimabue or Giotto looks like then it's a bit of a con but it's delightful in showing the reverence to art that an altarpiece deserves a procession. Cimabue is the man in white on the middle of the painting with Giotto the boy, his pupil, at his side. I can't help but wonder if Leighton had ever seen any real Cimabue paintings in his life?

That brings me back to Artemisia who clearly paints herself as an artist, a powerful statement of 'this who I am'. She's outlining a sketch of a painting while wearing a satin frock and a lock of hair falls free as it would when you're concentrating on your work. It really is quite marvellous.

There e also some great paintings by Zoffany (such as his painting of the Royal Academy in the nude drawing room and more 'moderns' painting and drawing the royal family. There's a lot here to see, even if it is quite small, and it's well worth seeing.

'Sculpture Victorious' at Tate Britain

On Friday afternoon I left work early to go to see the 'Sculpture Victorious' exhibition at Tate Britain. As you can probably guess from the title it's about Victorian sculpture and the poster for the exhibition features a glorious elephant of the Raj with a blanket on his back. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I walked through the doors but was pleasantly surprised.

It's quite a small exhibition - only 6 rooms - but the exhibits are nicely spaced out with lots of explanatory notes and, even better for me, it wasn't terribly busy late on a Friday afternoon. That meant I could mooch around as much as I wanted. I was a bit puzzled by the choice of an elephant on the exhibition poster - what's that trying to say? - but when I saw him in all his glory I decided that I'd love a shirt made to the same pattern as the blanket over his back. It would become my favourite.

The first room is full of Queen Victoria - Victoria as a young lady with her shoulders bare and Victoria as an old matron with lots of coverings and s sterner face. Not just busts of her, but medallions and other 3D representations. The next room was mainly medieval with a carved image of Eleanor of Aquitaine that was restored by the Victorians and partially sparked their interest in looking back. We also get a full sized knight and a rather odd statue of Elizabeth I. A far more entertaining depiction of Elizabeth is her seated and playing chess with Philip II of Spain, with ships as the chess pieces. It's very noticeable that Elizabeth is sitting proud and tall while Philip is more like a supplicant and his head is below hers. Appropriately, it's called 'A Royal Game' by William Reynolds-Stephens

Another room contained a lovely statue of 'Pandora' by Harry Bates and shows a young Pandora with her gazing at her box, probably wondering what's inside it and whether she should open it. Mankinds' plagues have not yet been released and she is young and innocent, in the first flush of womanhood with her life before her, crouching and holding this box that she seems to have just picked up. For a relatively large statue it has a delicate quality about it, a gentle image that doesn't hint at the dread that will happen if that small box is opened. The statue looks very smooth and the light glistens on the marble in little sparkles. A slip of the fingers and the world will change - be careful Pandora.

I think my favourite piece was a life-sized bronze statue of 'An Athlete Wrestling with a Python' and the look of concentration and determination in his face says that there's no way that python will win the contest.  The pose is very realistic with one foot clearly anchoring the wrestler - let's call him Fred - to the ground while the other foot is slightly raised, making Fred more mobile and able to twist and turn as the python wraps its coils around him. One arm holds the coils away from his torso and the vital organs protected under his ribs and Fred's other hand holds the python's head, thumb pressing into its throat. It's a very striking image, created by Lord Frederic Leighton, whose house in Kensington is now Leighton House Museum that I visited for the first time earlier this year. I didn't know he did bronzes so that's something I've learned.

It's a nice little exhibition with a good variety of exhibits, including the first, small model for the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus. There are a couple of very different statues of young men with bows, including this one. There's also a full sized reproduction outside the exhibition that is perfectly positioned for visitors to take photographs so I did. It's a very dramatic pose but I disapprove of the subject - it's called 'The Eagle Slayer' by John Bell. Obviously, that would be a bad thing.

The Guildhall Art Gallery and more Victorians

After seeing lots of Victorian painters at Leighton House Museum at the start of the week what better way to finish the week with more Victorians and another gallery I'd never visited, the Guildhall Art Gallery in the City. It's recently re-hung it's collection so it's a good time to go, especially on a dreary wet and cold afternoon in mid-February.

The star of the collection is Dante Gabriel Rossetti's 'La Ghirlandata', one of the centre-pieces of the Pre-Raphaelites, with her lush lips and direct gaze. She looks quite cold to me, playing her harp and gazing out at the viewer but, I think, she's gazing through us to something else, something just behind us that we can't see. Is she playing for a lover or is she cursed to play endlessly until the magic of a kiss frees her?

There are a few other paintings that might be classed as broadly Pre-Raphaelite but most of the collection isn't and it's good to see them together, the different artistic movements over the years.

There was a lovely painting by Frederic Leighton (whose home and studio are now Leighton House Museum) called 'The Music Lesson'. I assume the mother is teaching her daughter to play the lute amidst the acres of fabulously decorated fabrics that make up their clothes and their feet bare. It's the feet I first noticed since this painting is hung beside a short staircase and I saw the feet as I went up. The antique or eastern background, coupled with bare feet, suggests tho is meant to be in a far off land long ago to give it a context but I just think it's a lovely domestic scene with a parent and child doing what parents and children have always done. It's a very peaceful and calming painting with no rush or worry, not a care in the world.

Harking back to Leighton House again, I found three small paintings by Lawrence Alma-Tadema  in a little alcove, not terribly well lit or well hung, but it was nice to see them anyway. 'The Wine Shop', 'Pleading' (a very similar composition to a painting at Leighton House) and this one, 'The Pyrrhic Dance'.  The dance of armed soldiers celebrating history in war, performed for the great and the good in the city, a martial dance to show off their superiority. It's an odd composition, with the soldiers taking up two thirds of the available space and the other third given up to the city elders to watch. It's a small painting but quite striking.

The oldest painting I found was in a small underground gallery beside the entrance to the old Roman amphitheatre excavated underneath the Guildhall and this was 'The Thames During the Great Frost of 1739' painted by Jan Griffier the Younger in 1739. The Thames has frozen over in the winter cold and there are people out on the ice, possibly getting ready for the frost fairs that took place on the river. The dome of St Paul's is in th distance so this might have been painted from somewhere around Westminster? The river certainly looks wider the today so it was before the Embankment was built along the Thames. It's a fascinating view.

There's also the hopelessly sentimental and romantic paintings that the Victorians seem to love and we turn into pictures to decorate biscuit tins and Christmas cards. I quite liked this one, a painting by Augustus Edwin Mulready called 'Remembering Joys That Have Passed Away' from 1873. It shows two children gazing up at an old poster of the Christmas pantomime that has now closed while the snow falls around them. C'mon, own up - we've all been there haven't we, wishing that something would come back, some event or special moment and that is depicted in this small painting. Ah… memories…

2014 saw the 120th anniversary of the opening of Tower Bridge so, since this is the Guildhall, there was a small exhibition of paintings of the bridge and the surrounding areas as well a room with various things about the construction of the bridge and the alternative designs that were considered. Rather than show a painting of Tower Bridge I want to show this painting, called 'Chaos on London Bridge' by Harold Workman (undated). I like this, the traffic hell that can be London bridges, with buses all over the place and vans and cars dodging in and out. It reminded me of 'Hammersmith Bridge on Boat-Race Day' by Walter Greaves that I saw at Tate Britain with it's similar theme of crowds and madness on a bridge. Bridges can be special places, a transition point from one place to the next or a change from one thing to another and sometimes that transition is a mess. Welcome to London Bridge!

And there you have it, a selection of paintings and thoughts from the Guildhall Art Gallery. It's all plush and new and has very thick carpets. The main room quite a large space, very light and airy and most of the paintings are well hung for easy viewing. There are smaller rooms to visit as you wander round and you never know what you might stumble across. And best of all, no crowds. I'll certainly be happy to return again.