Favourite Paintings: 'The Snail' by Henri Matisse

One of my favourite paintings isn't really a painting, it's a 'cut out' made by painting paper different colours and then tearing it up and carefully placing it to create a new image. There was a great exhibition of Matisse's 'cut outs' at Tate Modern a few years ago and I loved it, such amazing images the old magician created in his old age, using assistants to help place the coloured paper just *so*. 'The Snail' is a huge work and was the centrepiece of the exhibition but I go back a lot further with that particular snail.

I have two distinct memories of visiting the Tate for the first time in the early '80s, walking up those imposing steps into the foyer, not knowing what I'd find but expecting great art. And that's what I saw since the Tate has a really good collection. But my two memories are of seeing a big Mark Rothko for the first time and being mesmerised by it and also seeing 'The Snail', equally large and far more colourful, but where was the snail it was named for? I couldn't see it. I looked at it up close and from a distance but no snail. I saw it many times on subsequent visits and then the Tate split into two and Tate Britain and Tate Modern were born and 'The Snail' moved down river to be a star of the new Tate Modern.

At some point I finally saw a glimpse of a snail and then, suddenly, there he was and all I could see was a snail. So the old man wasn't playing a joke on us after all, he really had created a snail from his bits of colourful paper. He's an old friend now and I delight in seeing him and I always say 'hello'. It was lovely to see him at the exhibition surrounded by so many other cut outs, some much bigger and more colourful but none so special. He has a name, of course, but that's for me to know and for you to guess.

A Decade of Exhibitions 2010-2019

At the end of the decade I thought I'd look back at exhibitions I saw over that time and see if I could come up with a top ten. I couldn't so I've listed my top 14 exhibitions. The criteria are really quite broad, not simply those I've personally liked but also those I've learned from, exhibitions that have brought together the widest range of paintings rather than going for the obvious exhibits, a whole host of things.

They're in chronological order rather than a countdown to the top exhibition - that's a step too far into the impossible. So here they are, the best exhibitions I've seen in the last decade.

Fra Angelico and the Masters of Light - Musee Jacquemart-Andre, Paris (2011)

The first exhibition about Fra Angelico I ever attended was at the Musee Jacquemart-Andre in Paris in 2011 and that was the first time I'd seen the widest range of his works outside of San Marco in Florence. The exhibition was made up of 20-odd paintings by Fra Angelico and about the same number by contemporary artists he influenced or was influenced by. I still remember standing in the middle of a small room being surrounded by paintings of the Virgin & Child by Fra Angelico, the vivid colours, the serenity, the different compositions - definitely a wow moment.

Paul Klee: Making Visible - Tate Modern, London (2014)

I've liked works by Paul Klee since I first came across him in school in about 1978. He's not one of the most famous artists of the 20th Century but he's one of the most influential, being a member of various art movements in the first half of the century including Der Blaue Reiter in Munich. I remember this exhibition as being very big, and it was, but largely because his paintings are mainly relatively small so more fit onto the walls. There was so much colour in those galleries, shapes and textures, mesmerising paintings to gaze at and decide what they're about - is that a house in the hills? a human figure? or just a mass of colours? It doesn't matter really, the beauty emanates out of the paintings. I went back several times to be in rooms surrounded by those amazing paintings.

Matisse: The Cut-Outs - Tate Modern, London (2014)

The follow-up exhibition to the Paul Klee exhibition at Tate Modern in 2014 was about Matisse and his cut-outs. The cut-outs are just that, coloured paper cut up and torn into different shapes and pasted  onto a background, so simple and yet so effective. Monsieur Matisse was an old man when he started creating his cut-outs and it was great seeing early film of him working as part of the exhibition. As he grew older he needed to use his assistants to place the coloured papers just right to fit his vision. How can so much beauty come from cut up bits of paper? It was an astonishing exhibition that I re-visited several times.

Inventing Impressionism - National Gallery, London (2015)

There were many Impressionist exhibitions over the decade and I attended quite a few but the Inventing Impressionism was rather special. It was based on the collection of the art dealer Paul Durant-Ruel who championed the Impressionist painters in the early days and virtually all of the paintings in the exhibition went through his hands at some stage. The exhibition contained some astonishing works that were completely new to me, a high quality exhibition without any filler at all. There was a quote on the wall of the final room of the exhibition from Durant-Ruel, 'At last the Impressionist masters triumphed...'. I loved that quote, naming the impressionist painters as 'masters', equal to the Old Masters we're familiar with.

Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun - Le Grand Palais, Paris (2015)

I'd never heard of Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun until I went to the exhibition of her portraits in Paris in 2015 and I'm so pleased I went. Madame Vigee Le Brun had an astonish life, being the favourite portraitist of Marie Antoinette, going into exile during the French Revolution due to her connection to royalty, travelling around Europe with her daughter making her living by painting portraits in country after country before eventually returning to France and dying in her own bed when in her 80s after attending a party that evening. Her legacy was on display in that huge exhibition that seemed to go on and on, with portrait after portrait, so lifelike and alive in expressions and colours, a true master of portraiture. The poster for the exhibition was one of her own self-portraits.

Sonia Delaunay - Tate Modern, London (2015)

I've known of the Delaunay's for quite a while but mainly Robert, Sonia's husband, so I looked forward to seeing this exhibition of Sonia's work. They worked together in the early years developing radical colour theories and putting them into practice in similar but subtly different ways. From the minutes I walked into the exhibition I was surrounded by colour, by Sonia's sketches and paintings, illustrations for Dadaist poetry, designs for clothes and samples of her work, so much variety and colour everywhere. It was great to learn about her life and work, about how she's quoted as saying she discovered black when in her 60s, about how she continued painting and experimenting into her old age in Paris. I was mightily impressed by this exhibition and, more so, by the variety of her work, always inventing, always creative.

Painting the Modern Garden: From Monet to Matisse - Royal Academy, London (2016)

Another great exhibition was all about paintings of gardens in all their variety, all the colour and shapes and textures of flowers and trees and shrubs, gardens with people in them, with country cottages, with walls and just flowers. Lots of flowers. I loved it. As well as paintings it included information about the gardening habits of some of the artists, who swapped seedlings with who and who liked to paint someone else's garden. There was a  great photo of Kandinsky in his garden with a shovel, wearing shorts and with a cigarette in his mouth. I wanted to jump into some of the paintings and wallow in the flowers colours. The only poor thing about the exhibition was the rather dull poster featuring a detail of a Monet.

A Thyssen Never Seen - CaixaForum, Barcelona (2016)

I went to Barcelona to see this exhibition, mainly to see a beautiful Virgin & Child by Fra Angelico, one of my favourite paintings of his, but got caught by the sheer range of paintings in the exhibition which was showing off the Thyssen collection from Madrid. From early Renaissance paintings to modern works from the mid-20th Century, there was something there for everyone. Whoever curated the exhibition and managed to get so many masterpieces from the Thyssen-Bornamisza Museum in Madrid must've been a good negotiator since it was an amazing variety of paintings from across the centuries, all first rate and no filler.

Out of Chaos - Laing Gallery, Newcastle (2017)

The 'Out of Chaos' exhibition in Newcastle was in partnership with the Ben Uri collection in London, a collection of works telling the tale of migration and escape from persecution in the first half of the 20th Century. Of course, not everyone escaped and some of the works shown were poignant in that the artists were killed or died before they could reach safety and their potential forever lost. I can still remember some of the terrible images in those paintings. I was pleased to see a couple of small works by Sonia Delaunay since she and her husband fled persecution and war. It was a powerful exhibition with some very powerful tales to tell.

Raphael: The Drawings - Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (2017)

This exhibition at the Ashmolean in Oxford consisted of drawings, big and small, by Raphael, all of which I'd never seen before but some of which were sketches for elements of paintings and I'd seen a couple of those finished paintings (such as Disco Jesus in the Vatican). To say that Raphael was a good drawer is an understatement. It was particularly good to see him practicing his compositions, having a character face this way and then that way as he experimented with what might be the most effective or dramatic. It's good to get a glimpse of how an artist of his stature worked.

Picasso 1932 - Tate Modern, London (2018)

This was  an odd exhibition in many ways - not everything in it was first rate Picasso but everything was authentic. It showed us his works from a very experimental year when he was already rich and famous but wasn't sure where to go next artistically. There was also one large room put aside to show us the works in one of his one-man exhibitions he curated that year. I loved how each exhibition was labeled with the day and date the work was done - so many works completed in less than a day before he moved on to something else. The sheer creativity of the man is astounding.

Florence - Alte Pinakothek, Munich (2019)

This was a truly great exhibition on so many levels, with great paintings from about 1300 - 1500 by painters associated with Florence. Giotto, Gaddi, Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippo, Ghirlandaio, Leonardo, Fra Bartolomeo, Botticelli and a host of others. Altarpieces were re-imagined using available predella panels and side panels, early portraits showing the development of portraiture - so much stuff to marvel at. The museum had started work on this exhibition five years ago and it must have been a joy to see it come to fruition and see it constantly packed with visitors, both local and international to enjoy the wealth of glorious art gathered together in the same place for the first time. Well done Alte Pinakothek!

Fra Angelico and the Rise of the Florentine Renaissance - Prado, Madrid (2019)

A large exhibition of works by Fra Angelico from all over the world to help celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Prado, all centred on the newly restored 'Annunciation' by Angelico that is one of the prides of the Prado's collection. It really was a stunning collection of paintings from major, large collections and obscure small pieces from small collections in towns around Europe and the USA. It was startling to see all these paintings by Fra Angelico in the same place, see his art develop, his story-telling improving, the subjects he chose to paint and the colours he used. The ficus was on one decade of 1420-30 when Angelico reached his peak with his glorious Virgin & Child paintings and the masterpiece of the 'Annunciation'. So much care went into the detail of this exhibition and chosing Adam and Eve from the 'Annunciation' to front the exhibition was inspired. Well done Prado!

Keith Haring - Tate Liverpool (2019)

The final highlight exhibition for me was the recent exhibition of works by Keith Haring at Tate Liverpool. I suspect we can all recognise his cartoon-like works but I didn't know much about him before this exhibition, his activism and his untimely early death. He would've been just a few years older than me if he hadn't died and I can't help but wonder what he'd be producing these days. It was a very big exhibition with loads of his stuff on paper, vinyl and canvas, big pieces and small, some as stand0alone works, others were for posters and his activism. His early works about AIDS were particularly powerful and his later works reflected this except they were bigger, more complicated and more painful to see. Tate Liverpool obviously understood this and the final image, just as you left the gallery, was a blown up photo of Keith with his top off and wearing parched jeans having a bit of a dance and a giggle, reminding us of the fun he enjoyed and his indomitable spirit manifest in his art.

So there you have it, a decade of exhibitions. There were many more over the decade, well over 100 or more, but these are my favourites, the ones I think back to and enjoy, even the painful ones. I'm quite pleased that so many were outside London and outside the country - you don't have to be in London to see great art, it's happening everywhere!

There were many more that weren't about painting as well, exhibitions of sculpture, folk crafts, ancient artefacts, Buddhist scriptures, manuscripts, punk memorabilia, all sorts of stuff really. Take a look at what's happening in your local gallery or museum - or maybe your local coffee house or pub even - since amazing things happen everywhere. The important thing is to open your eyes and your mind - you never know what you might find.

Favourite Paintings: 'The Snail' by Henri Matisse

One of my favourite paintings is by Henri Matisse, 'The Snail' in the Tate collection. It's a huge painting and  fills any wall it's hung on, one of Matisse's famous 'cut-outs' made from seemingly random shapes of paper stuck together on a canvas. Today it's on display in Tate Modern but I first saw it 40 years ago when it hung in what was simply known as the Tate (now Tate Britain) along the road from Parliament. I have vague memories of standing in front of this giant painting and puzzling over why it was called 'The Snail'. Now I don't puzzle at all, of course it's a snail and all he's looking for is a bit of lettuce to nibble on - what's wrong with that?

Late in his life that wily old magician, Matisse, started to create a series of works that came to be known as his 'cut-outs' where he assembles different bits of coloured paper in various layers to create astonishing works of art. His assistants assembled the pieces for him to his design and there's even video of him making pieces. Tate Modern held a big exhibition of these works a few years ago, a huge blockbuster of a show, some works were huge and some small. I loved that exhibition and saw it several times. I never got over my astonishment at how beautiful the works were, ragged bits of paper in many colours pulled together to create beauty. 'The Snail' had a wall to himself, rightly so since he was one of the stars of the show.

I most recently saw 'The Snail' last Friday when I wandered into a series of galleries in Tate Modern that I hadn't visited for a while and thought I'd see what was on show. And there he was, sitting on the wall waiting to say hello. He was surrounded by young children on half-term break from school and they seemed to be enjoying him immensely. I visited him again later when it was more peaceful to say hello. If you look carefully you'll see me reflected in the glass protecting the painting - I've been in that glass many times over the years, 'The Snail' is an old friend.

I once made a copy of 'The Snail' using Opal Fruits sweets while on the train to Chichester.  The sweets didn't last very long and it wasn't a very good copy but he is a bit of an inspiration.

Bonjour Monsieur Le Snail.

'Matisse in the Studio' at the Royal Academy

The current exhibition at the Royal Academy is 'Matisse in the Studio' upstairs in the Sackler Gallery, up all those glass stairs, and it is exactly what it says on the tin. We see a collection of M. Matisse's 'stuff' that also featured in or influenced his paintings. Matisse collected stuff and used it in his paintings, a vase here, a mask there, a table with more stuff on it or a silk screen in the background. He didn't make these things up, they were there in his studio ready to be called onto his canvases. This exhibition tells the story of his stuff.

The theme of the exhibition is kicked off in style by the first painting called simply 'Vase of Flowers' from 1924 and, beside the painting, in a glass case, is the very same green glass vase that features in the painting. On the other side is another painting featuring that vase. That nicely summed up this exhibition to me - see that thing there? it's in *that* painting. And it is.

The artefacts aren't always as obvious as the vase, of course, and they're sometimes in the background but all help to make up the totality of a painting. According to one of the signs in the exhibition Matisse described his stuff as a 'working library' waiting to be called up for duty in this painting or that.

The exhibition includes works from throughout Matisse's career and shows us how he continually used his stuff to illustrate and augment his paintings. He seems to use his stuff to add more patterns and shapes to his paintings and there's nothing wrong with that. One of my favourites was 'Yellow Odalisque' with it's lush, bright colours and balanced composition that make it part still life and part portrait. Which is it and does it matter?

The little table beside the chair is the object on display in the exhibition beside this gorgeous painting. It's not an exact rendering of the table by any means but that's not the point - it's there, it's part of the whole.

There are a few of Matisse's 'odalisque' paintings in the exhibition and they're all gorgeous. Another is the 'Reclining Odalisque' beside a tray with an elaborate tea pot like a samovar (I assume) and this is what is on display.

We see the photo that inspired 'Standing Nude' in the Tate collection, bronze busts, African masks that feature in paintings and inspired Matisse's developing style. We even get a few of his cut-outs. That old man never stopped creating.

One of my favourites of his later works was 'Red Interior: Still Life on a Blue Table' and, by this time, I'd stopped looking for the artefact near the painting and just indulged in the colours and shapes in the painting. I couldn't help but look through the open window towards the garden and wonder what flowers were out there under the trees, what shapes the flower beds were in and whether the flowers were ready to pick to put in a vase and paint them. There's always something else to paint.

It's not a very big exhibition but it is really gorgeous. If you even vaguely like Matisse then you must visit it and drink in the paintings and the objects that feature in them.

'Picasso Portraits' at the National Portrait Gallery

We took advantage of the 'Friday late' at the National Portrait Gallery to see the new exhibition 'Picasso Portraits'. I quite like going to 'lates' on a Friday at various galleries and museums because they tend to be less crowded that during daytimes but this exhibition was still quite crowded so it's clearly a hot ticket.

The exhibition's on until February so there's plenty of time to catch it. It focuses on self-portraits and portraits Picasso's family and friends in a wide range of media and styles throughout his long life. There seemed to be a lot of paintings and drawings from private collections so this is a nice opportunity to see works that we otherwise wouldn't have an opportunity to see.

The first painting you see as you enter the exhibition - because it's straight in front of you - is 'Self-portrait with Palette' from 1906, a painting of the young Picasso who was just starting to become well known. It's a simple self-portrait really, just him dressed plainly and with a plain background and that's possibly what makes it so striking since the only thing to focus on is his face and those exotic eyebrows. He uses the traditional thing of showing himself with the tools of his trade, the palette with some smears of colour, and i wonder how many other artists over the centuries have done the very same thing? But where is his brush?

This is followed by roughly sketched portraits of friends, of thickly worked oil portraits and some jokey portraits, all in different styles and different media as he experimented and challenged himself.

A more 'traditional' portrait is one of his wife, a three quarter pose with Olga gazing away to the side, not engaged with her husband at all. She has a very impassive face in this portrait in contrast to the busy-ness of her jacket and dress with the folds and creases lightly hanging off her. Their marriage was deteriorating when this was painted and it certainly projects a cool atmosphere. I wonder how long it took him to complete this painting?

Many of the paintings are of the women in his life, the ongoing love affairs as they came and went, and not all are terribly flattering. They were his muses as well as lovers and contributed to his continually developing and evolving art.

A painting that grabbed my attention was 'Woman in a Yellow Armchair' (Dora Maar) from 1932 in which Picasso moves away from anything like a graphic reproduction of his sitter and, instead, invests in simple shapes and blocks of colour. It instantly made me think of Matisse and of course, Picasso and Matisse were friends and rivals - remove the figurative elements of the painting and you've almost got Matisse's 'The Snail'. Look at all that rich, warm colour and then notice the simple black and white of the painting on the wall behind the armchair which, once you've noticed it it keeps drawing the eye. Is he, perhaps, suggesting that life is the true art, not the bits of canvas and paper we stick on walls?

The last love of Picasso's life was Jacqueline, whom he married and lived out his last years with. His colour palette changes in those years and I was fascinated by a large painting of her called 'Woman by a Window' in shades of grey, green and brown. It's a complex mixture of shapes slotted together to create the form of a beautiful woman with a rather delicate face, sitting patiently beside a window with a glimpse of a palm tree outside. Picasso used the wooden end of his brush to scrape lines and texture into the paint of the portrait (see the lighter lines running down from the knees, these are scrape marks). Although it's quite dull in terms of the colours used and I'm definitely a creature of colour, it is quite spellbinding and made me go back to look at it several times.

Another portrait of Jacqueline (from 1962 which was one of the later works in the exhibition) was painted onto a standing piece of cut sheet metal with different portraits of his wife on each side, 'Jacqueline with a Yellow Ribbon'. I loved this one and would happily have it standing in my living room. The painting in the background of this picture is his daughter 'Maya in a Sailor Suit'.

So there you have a flavour of this exhibition. There are some lovely and some strange pieces in this exhibition and the curators have obviously put in a lot of work to try and make it different to the 'standard' Picasso exhibition that seems to pop up every few years. Focusing on portraits is a different angle to take and he certainly did enough, including some sculptures that are included in the exhibition. The exhibition is presented in conjunction with the always crowded Picasso Museum in Barcelona. Well worth seeing!

Impressionists and Moderns: Masterpieces from the Phillips Collection at CaixaForum, Madrid

One of the joys of wandering round a strange city is that you never know what you might find. On the way to Museo Reina Sofia, walking down the road past the Prado, we stumbled across an odd building with a garden growing on one of the outside walls and saw a large poster highlighting a Degas painting of ballet dancers. It was the Madrid branch of the excellent CaixaForum in an exciting new building which provides the perfect space for exhibitions. The current exhibition was 'Impressionists and Moderns: Masterpieces from the Phillips Collection'.

I've not heard of the Phillips Collection but it's based in Washington, USA, and is an astonishing collection of 'modern' paintings in the European tradition. There were 60 paintings in this exhibition ranging from the neo-classical of Ingres and romanticism of Constable in the early-1800s to abstract paintings from the 1970s. It almost felt like a greatest hits of painters in the last 200 years - you name him and he's there (yes, overwhelmingly male painters other than Berthe Morisot). Delacroix, Degas, Cezanne, Picasso, Braques, Bonnard, Kandinsky and so many more.

One of the early paintings that grabbed my attention was 'The Road to Vetheull' by Monet, a simple but lovely landscape painted in the late afternoon, presumably returning home after a long walk. The colours are marvellous and the shadows tell us the time but where has the artist been and where is he going? What's round the bend in the road? I want to know.  I could almost imagine myself trudging along that road, aiming for the teashop for a cup of tea and cake on my return from a day out exploring the countryside. The sight of the village in the distance shows that I'm almost there. M. Monet knows how to draw you into a painting.

Another painting that made me look again was 'The Riviera' by Pierre Bonnard, another landscape full of colour and shape and motion. Painted from a high vantage point, this painting is full of vegetation and light, bright, sunlit colours and you can imagine the bushes and trees swaying in the breeze. A chateau is central in the middle distance and, perhaps, that's where Bonnard was staying?

Another landscape that pulled me in was 'Courmayear et les Dents des Geants' by Oskar Kokoschka, again full of colour and inviting me to stride around the jagged mountains in the painting. I'm not usually a big fan of landscapes but these paintings were excellent and pulled me in. I've never associated Mr Kokoschka with sunny landscapes before so I've obviously got a lot more to learn.

A final painting I'd single out is Matisse's 'Interior with Egyptian Curtains' from 1948. He's used this kind of composition before, an indoors scene looking out of a window - often of a palm tree - and this has a power to draw the eyes. It's so simple yet so effective. I can almost hear the palm leaves rustling in the breeze outside the window, those simple dashes of green and blue perfectly summing up the swaying palm leaves. How does he do it?

There were, of course, lots of other paintings to mention but I can't do that here - buy the catalogue online if you'd like (CaixaForum had an excellent shop). The Collection really is a 'greatest hits' of the best of 'modern' art and I'll certainly keep my eyes open for any future exhibitions involving the Phillips Collection.

I'm delighted to have discover the CaixaForum, a great space for exhibiting art and a lovely comfortable feeling to the place as well. I loved the lime green toilets on the 6th floor and the garden wall beside the entrance - that's partly what attracted me to the building in the first place, seeing the gardeners tidying up the wall for Autumn.

I plan to visit the CaixaForum in Barcelona in November to see an exhibition from the Thyssen-Bornimesza Collection so it'll be interesting to compare the two spaces. I wonder if it'll have lime green toilets as well?

'Painting the Modern Garden - From Monet to Matisse' at the Royal Academy

I like gardens and flowers, I like painting and I love Monet and Matisse so this exhibition was designed to reel me in, wander round awe-struck and then buy postcards and the exhibition catalogue. I couldn't help it and neither could the unknown crowds who visited with me. After the first few rooms I decided that this was the must-see exhibition of the Spring in London - it is gorgeous, it is emotionally stimulating, it is truly fab (obv). Hundreds and hundreds of paintings (-ish) and dozens and dozens of rooms (well, it felt like it), the Royal Academy has scored a hit with this exhibition. Did I like it? O yes!

I've been to quite a few exhibitions at the Royal Academy and this was easily the most crowded so, if you want to see it, book tickets now to avoid disappointment. Is it the idea of gardens or flowers or the Impressionists and those that came after them that proves to be the draw? I don't know but I certainly want to go back before it closes. The paintings are glorious and it will take your breath away to see so many paintings on a similar theme all grouped together. It's fascinating to consider how different artists at different times saw their gardens so differently.

The Royal Academy keeps the theme going by replacing the leather benches with park benches to sit on, plants growing in a mini-greenhouse and books and letters describing the gardens we see. That's a nice touch from the curators - let's show that some of the painters were also serious gardeners and swapped cuttings and ideas. Because they did. I was vaguely surprised that some were keen gardeners but I'm not sure why that is - why shouldn't they like growing things and designing gardens? I'm jolly pleased they did because it led to some wonderful paintings.

There was one room that made me feel like I was in the flower tent at the Chelsea Garden Show, surrounded by banks of flowers, and I'm sure that's what the curators intended - one of the paintings is on the cover to the catalogue, Monet's 'Chrysanthemums', which is a glorious explosion of colour. As I entered the room I saw the painting out of the corner of my eye and headed straight for it. I've never seen it before and I wanted to jump into it.

As well as Monet and Matisse, there are paintings by all sorts of people, from the Impressionists onwards to those who took their art so much further. We see the delights of Pissarro and Renoir, a few by Caillebotte, Berthe Morisot, Van Gogh, and there are paintings by Kandinsky, Klee, Munch, Nolde and so many others. There are lots of paintings by M. Monet and his garden, of course, and the final room shows three enormous water lilies canvases placed together as a farewell to the art of painting a garden.

It's also nice that the curator hasn't gone for the 'usual' or 'obvious' paintings by the artists (except for Monet - you've got to have some waterlilies!). This shows us another side to these artists, a side I didn't know. Who knew that Caillebotte used to swap cuttings with Monet? I've only ever seen his 'urban' Parisian paintings but now I've seen his garden and learned more about him. It's also nice that this exhibition starts in winter and closes in spring - the glorious warm colours and shafts of light brightening up the cold, drab, grey winter outside. Great timing. When it finishes London will be full of greenery and spring flowers again.

Don't miss this amazing exhibition - I shall return!

The Plastic Bag is 10

This blog has been going for 10 years now, something I couldn't even dream of back when I started  but it's true. This is post number 2,360 and it's had 344,102 page views - or at least that's the number in the analytics since Google took over Blogger (whenever that was). To celebrate moving into my 11th year in the Plastic Bag I've changed the url for the blog to plasticbag2005.blogspot.co.uk so my user numbers will start from zero again.

I've blogged about all sorts of stuff over the years. Holidays, gigs, music, thoughts, exhibitions, theatre, news, annoyances and joys. It's all in here somewhere. The only theme here is me. It's not a music blog or a theatre blog or an art blog or anything like that. It's about me and what I'm interested in. And I'm interested in lots of things.

I've blogged about Buffy Sainte-Marie and Amanda Palmer (especially receiving AFP hugs), about Matisse and Paul Klee exhibitions, about buying cushions, about people switching on their phones in theatres, about theatrical productions I've enjoyed or hated, about my holidays and penchant for making lists, about poetry on the Tube network and more. I've blogged about all sorts of stuff and all of this is part of me.

We're all made up of many contradictions and I'm not sure what makes me continue to type out blogs and then send them out into the vastness of the Internet. That's a big space out there and my small voice is part of it. Sometime people notice and sometimes they don't. I don't really understand the patterns of viewing but I'm not too bothered. My peak month was April 2011 when I had 4,800 readers but I've gone steadily downhill since then but that's not bad for an unpromoted blog.

I was delighted that my blogging about Jane Aire & The Belvedere's attracted so many positive comments and then created a connection with Jane herself who now sings in a choir in America but appreciates our continued punk-love of her younger self. I was also touched by people welcoming my blogging about an operation for a stomach hernia and how to look after the wound since it wasn't explained by the hospitals. It's odd what people notice and find useful.

Anyway, let's see what the next ten years contains... I suspect more of the same - but who knows? Watch this space!

The Plastic Bag Awards 2014

The annual awards season kicks off with the Plastic Bag Awards 2014. Some years feature one form of art more than others and this year has seen a deluge of theatrical experiences and very little new music or gigs - that's just how it goes sometimes. The judging panel has had some heated discussions  and has decided on the following awards.

Ladies and gentlemen and readers of all ages, I give you the Baggies 2014!

Best Theatre - Shakespeare Production

This is a new category to celebrate Shakespeare and the new productions of his plays put on last year. There was a great series of his Roman plays staged at The Globe over the summer, none of which I'd previously seen, and all are nominated. The nominations are:

'Henry V' at the Noel Coward Theatre
'King Lear' at the National Theatre
'Titus Andronicus' at Shakespeare's Globe
'Anthony & Cleopatra' at Shakespeare's Globe
'Julius Caesar' at Shakespeare's Globe.

Jude Law was my king in 'Henry V' with his stirring speeches and Simon Russell-Beale was suitably grumpy and despondent as Lear but it was the Roman plays at the Globe that really gripped me. The violence and blood of 'Titus' and the faded grandeur of Cleopatra but the glory belongs to 'Julius Caesar' with a great production matching that magnificent play with poetry to make you gasp and weep at its power and beauty.

Best Theatre - Drama

Taking Shakespeare out of this category makes it look, at first glance, a bit lightweight but here we have three revivals and two brand new plays being staged for the first time, both at the National Theatre. No-one can call 'Medea' lightweight. The nominations are:

'Skylight' at Wyndham's Theatre
'Medea' at the National Theatre
'My Night With Reg' at the Donmar Warehouse
'Behind The Beautiful Forevers' at the National Theatre
'Treasure Island' at the National Theatre

'Skylight' was a trip back to the '80s with Bill Nighy being Bill Nighy and we went back to another '80s with 'My Night With Reg'. 'Medea' is a millenia-old desolate play of extremes and can't help but be powerful. 'Behind The Beautiful Forevers' took us to an India few of us will ever see and 'Treasure Island' took us on a rollicking adventure to the Caribbean to find pirate treasure. They're all excellent plays but the Baggie must go to 'My Night With Reg' for evoking those lost days of the '80s when HIV first reared its ugly head and changed lives, and this play gently and evocatively illustrates the horror and pain so many people lived and died with back then.

Best Theatre - Musical

It's been a grand year for musicals, old and new. I saw lots of musicals last year and could so easily have nominated 'Amadeus' at Chichester, '20th Century Boy' at Wimbledon or the lovely Guildhall production of 'Grand Hotel' at the Barbican. But I must stick by the rules and nominate no more than five for the judges to assess and these are:

'Sunny Afternoon' at Hampstead Theatre
'Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be' at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East
'Guys & Dolls' at Chichester Festival Theatre
'Gypsy' at Chichester Festival Theatre
'Here Lies Love' at the National Theatre

This is a very difficult category and all five nominees deserve to be in the last five - they all have different qualities that bring them alive but the judges have awarded the Baggie to 'Sunny Afternoon' for being a joyous recreation of the music of the Kinks. It's currently running in the West End and raises the roof every night. Well done people!

Best Entertainment

An 'entertainment' in my book is something that is performed on stage short of it being a play or a musical, so can include readings, cabaret, circus and just about anything else.

'Ellen Terry With Eileen Atkins' at the Sam Wanamaker Theatre
'La Soiree' at the Southbank Spielgeltent
'Shakespeare's Sonnets' at the Royal Festival Hall
'Lord of the Flies' at Sadler's Wells
'A Christmas Carol' at Queen Elizabeth Hall

I loved the acrobatic rudeness of 'La Soiree' and the mammoth reading of all of Shakespeare's sonnets one after another by a set of actors. I loved 'Lord of the Flies', the new Matthew Bourne production, and listening to an ensemble reading of 'A Christmas Carol' just a couple of weeks before Christmas is magical. But the Baggie goes to Eileen Atkins for her one-woman show of 'Ellen Terry With Eileen Atkins'. Eileen turned into different people in front of our eyes as she played some of Ellen Terry's big roles, giving us a glimpse into what true acting can be like. Most impressive.

Best Film

A strange mix of nominations this year - a music documentary, a tale of gay solidarity with the miners strike in the '80s, a silent movie masterpiece with Buster Keaton and a strange American take on a Noel Coward play. The nominees are:

'20 Feet From Stardom'
'Pride'
'The General'
'Design For Living'

The judges picked the winner with little discussion - the Baggie goes to 'Pride' for being the best film in many years. The tale of those brave souls behind Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) and the miners they supported in South Wales during the 1985 miners strike. The miners might not have won but this film has winner written all over it from the touching and funny acting, a great soundtrack and jumpers tucked into jeans for added reality. Well done!

Best Gig

I didn't go to many gigs last year, mainly because artists I want to see didn't seem to be on tour, but there were still sufficient to make a top five. The nominees are:

Suzanne Vega at the Barbican
McAlmont & Butler at Islington Assembly Hall
Kate Bush at Hammersmith Apollo
Marianne Faithfull at the Royal Festival Hall
The Human League at Hammersmith Apollo

Suzanne Vega gave us songs from her latest album ('Queen of Pentacles') and McAlmont & Butler got together for a two-night reunion for charity while Marianne and the Human League, old troupers both, gave us solid professional shows, giving us exactly what we wanted. But the Baggie must go to Kate Bush for her return to the stage after 35 years and me being in the fourth row from the stage. That was a thrill and a half and you could feel the excitement grow in the crowd as starting time approached. And then there she was...

Best Live Performance

This category is for the individual performance of a song on stage, a performance that rips you out of the audience and transcends all barriers to take you to a different place. There are only three monitions this year:

'Running Up That Hill' by Kate Bush
'Everything's Coming Up Roses' by Imelda Staunton ('Gypsy')
'Mother Wolf' by Marianne Faithfull

Imelda's performance of one of the big songs from 'Gypsy' was astonishing in it's intensity as was the ferocity of Marianne's 'Mother Wolf' in which she spits out the words and despises the modern world. But It's Kate's song from the '80s, 'Running Up That Hill' that stays with me for the sheer majesty of the performance making me think we could, indeed, do a deal with God. Well done Kate!

Best Exhibition

I've been to quite a few exhibitions this year, mainly courtesy of membership of the Tate and the British Museum but I found it quite easy to narrow down the nominees, which are:

'Heaven In A Hell Of War' - Stanley Spencer at Somerset House
'Making Visible' - Paul Klee at the Tate Modern
'The Cut-Outs' - Henri Matisse at the Tate Modern
'Revolutionary of Russian Art' - Kazimir Malevitch at the Tate Modern
'Virginia Woolf - Art, Life & Vision' at the National Portrait Gallery

The Stanley Spencer exhibition was marvellous and, astonishingly, free to get in, and it reproduced his sequence of large paintings about his experience of the First World War and after. The colours, textures and patterns Paul Klee explored were delightful and uplifting by turns and the cut-outs of the Old Magician, Matisse, were joyful. Malevitch was more intellectual and hard to take in fully and the assembled objects at the Virginia Woolf exhibition were touching, particularly the little black book kept by the Nazi's with her name in for immediate arrest following a Nazi invasion. I learnt something from all these exhibitions (as one should) and left them wiser and with a greater understanding of their work. It was very difficult for the judges who eventually decided to award the Baggie to M. Matisse for his glorious and joyful cut-outs that got bigger and bigger as he got older. *Bows*.

Best Book

There isn't usually a book category in the Baggies so this is another new one simply because I read four great rock books over the summer and all deserve to be mentioned.

'Clothes Clothes Clothes, Music Music Music, Boys Boys Boys' - Viv Albertine
'Buffy Sainte-Marie: It's My Way' - Blair Stonechild
'Look Wot I Dun: My Life In SLADE' - Don Powell & Lise Lyng Falkenberg
'Bedsit Disco Queen' - Tracey Thorn

Blair's book about Buffy successfully pulls together existing material about Buffy, Don's books sheds new light on his time with SLADE and Tracey's book was doubly entertaining and illuminating since it's the tale of the growth of a contemporary into a pop star so I could recognise and relive many of the allusions she makes. Great and as entertaining as these books are, it's hats off to Viv Albertine for her astonishingly honest memoir, 'Clothes…Music…Boys'. Books are too often called "brutally honest" but none so honest as Viv's book where she holds nothing back. It's intensity and honesty are painful and that's the mark of great writing and great story-telling. She discovered her own narrative voice while writing this book and I'm sure that'll provide dividends for future songs as well as books. Well done Viv!

And there you have them, the Baggies 2014! Let's see what 2015 brings, shall we?

'Waterlillies' at The Orangerie

I visited the Musee De L'Orangerie for the first time while in Paris last week. I've been outside the Orangerie before but never inside and what a glory it is. There was some kind of security alert going on when we first got there there, with people being ushered away from the building but, later, we joined the queue to get in and waited patiently. And waited. And then got in and through the security and could see the glory that awaited us.

Les Nympheas - the waterlillies - are a sight worth seeing. I knew the paintings were big but didn't realise just how big. They're huge!

Two oval rooms with four enormous paintings in each around the walls. The waterlillies ponds in the morning, in the evening, during a rainstorm, at sunset… it's all there in marvellous glory and I have to admit to getting a bit teary. This old man, Claude Monet, going blind and insisting on painting what he sees how he sees it. What's with these old French artists that keeps them going, keeps them creating and making us gasp at the wonder?

I was in awe of the majesty of what I was seeing in the flesh for the first time. We've all probably seen reproductions of some of the waterlillies paintings ht seeing the reality of then is really quite stunning. Seeing the rain drops in the ponds, the willow trees and the waterlillies themselves floating in the shimmering water… it's all quite stunning. And the size of them - wow!

The museum is in the Orangerie in the Tuileries and is much bigger underground than it looks on the surface. The original building has been converted into a space to house Monet's paintings in two large oval rooms but it's been expanded underground as a gallery to show off more French paintings. The waterlillies alone are worth the entry price and I see everything else as a free extra.

There was an exhibition of paintings by Emile Bernard that I didn't find terribly inspiring but the exhibition of paintings from the collection of Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume was well worth wandering round.

The exhibition included works from every post-impressionist you could ask for but I was particularly taken with paintings by Soutine, Derain and Rousseau.  There were some great paintings by Picasso and Cezanne to marvel at but for some unknown reason I loved Andre Derain's 'Le Gros Arbre' (the big tree) and loved Matisse's 'Odalisque a La Culotte Rouges'. Sometimes you've just got to go with the flow. The Orangerie should be on everyone's list of places to visit when they go to Paris.

I will certainly go back and enjoy wallowing in the glory of M Monet and whatever exhibition is going on in support of his waterlillies. It's so worth it!