Favourite Paintings: John Martin 'The Bard'

One of the first paintings I ever saw in a gallery was 'The Bard' by John Martin in the Laing Gallery in Newcastle, probably in 1976. Back then it hung on the wall high above the stairs where they made a final turn to the first floor. I don't think anything's been hung there for years and it's just a blank wall these days.

John Martin was a local boy made good. He was born in Northumberland not far from Newcastle in 1789 and he became one of the most famous painters of his day. He painted huge paintings and went on tour with the paintings around the country. There was an excellent exhibition of his work at Tate Britain in 2011, the first major exhibition of his work for many years. 'The Bard' is quite large but is dwarfed by his huge canvases with their vast, panoramic scenes. It is, however, a typical Martin painting with it's intense romantic subject matter.

The painting tells the tale of the last Bard in Wales, hunted down by Edward I's army and who throws himself off the cliff to certain death to avoid being captured. It's a mythical tale and typically romantic, being featured in a poem by Thomas Gray, but Martin takes the tale and runs with it to make it dramatic and bold, a brave Bard, the last of his kind cursing and defying the king, trusting his body to the river below rather than to the soldiers. Martin chooses the moment before he plunges to his death in the foaming river below. Wild eyed, his cloak billowing in the wind, the Bard holds his harp and raises his hand to lay his curse on the English king and his army. And, of course, we know he jumps shortly afterwards, giving his life to make sure the curse works.

Of course, the mountains of Wales are nothing like those in the painting and it's thought that these are based on prints of the Alps that Martin would have seen. Does that matter? Of course not. In the world of the painting this is an impossibly romantic scene and needs a suitable backdrop.

The huge army winding along and down the mountain on the left-hand side is huge, winding up and around the mountain passes and valleys. It's an impossibly huge army to put into rough mountains and it would be very foolish to have so many men chasing down one old man, particularly on those magnificent horses. But that's not the point. What matters is the tale the story Martin is telling.

The army shows the power of the king, with all this might pitted against an old man with a harp but we know that old man has power too and he doesn't need an army to back him up. His powers are ancient and mystical and come from the land he stands on.

This is a painting to awaken the imagination of anyone who is open to it, who starts to wonder about what's going on in the painting in front of them and immerse themselves in the tale. John Martin didn't paint pretty pictures, he painted tales and flights of the imagination, taking the viewer on a journey to who knows where. Is it any surprise that this painting has stuck with me over the years?

I try to visit the Laing Gallery whenever I visit Newcastle. It has an interesting collection and changes its displays quite regularly so I'm almost always guaranteed to see some paintings I've never seen before. John Martin's great works are always on display. Take a look the next time you're in Newcastle, entry to see the collection is free and it's a great way to get some peace from the people and traffic outside on the streets.

Imtiaz Dharker 'Alan or David or John'

I was leafing through a book of poems by Imtiaz Dharker this afternoon and found a lovely poem called 'Alan or David or John'. I can't find it online and it's too long for me to type out but it's wonderful in it's simplicity. It begins:

'You ask me how it all began. It began
with something unattainable. I fell in love
with an older man. He must have been
fourteen.'

And she tells how she fell in love with the boy who lived opposite her house when she was nine years old who's name might have been 'Alan or David or John'. She began writing notes and poems to him which he never saw and he never wrote back. His name might have been Colin or Donald or Sam. 

But someone started writing back to her, love letters in books she borrowed from the library

'... with their sonnets and their couplets
and their wee sleekit words,
Rabbie and Will and John.'

The love affair went on for years and continues today. The poem ends:

'You ask how it began.
It began, like everything, with love.
I wrote and they came, they answered on behalf
of the boy with no name,
Alan or David or John.'

To be a poet is a fine thing indeed.

Natalia Goncharova at Tate Modern

The work of Natalia Goncharova is one of the big Tate exhibitions this summer and this one is at Tate Modern. I thought I didn't know who she was but then I realised that I'd seen some of her work at an exhibition at the V&A about Diaghilev eight years ago where her designs for 'The Firebird' ballet for the Ballet Russe were on show. I'm pleased to say that I saw some of the designs reproduced when I saw the Royal Ballet dance 'The Firebird' at the Royal Opera House a few weeks ago with Itziar Mendizabal dancing the title role.

Natalia Goncharova was born and educated in Russia but moved to Paris in 1921 where she lived for the rest of her life. She had her first exhibitions in Moscow and St Petersburg before the First World War and was part of the avant-garde in Russia, being a member of several artistic movements including Der Blaue Reiter in Germany and developed Rayonism with her husband Mikhail Larionov. She died in 1962. Her story reminds me of Sonia Delaunay, both marrying artists, both developing new theories of art, both moving to Paris, both working in abstraction, both designing clothes, etc. Sonia was a few years younger than Natalia and died a few years after her. I assume they must have known each other and must have met.

The first couple of small rooms of the exhibition include the early works you'd expect to see in an exhibition but then you move through into the next room, very big and flooded with light. The room is usually divided into smaller spaces but opening it up like this was inspired and a nice surprise. One wall is dominated by the work called 'Harvest' (above) which was originally made up of nice panels but two are lost. This work was part of her first exhibitions in 1913 and 1914 and seems to be based on the tales of the Biblical Apocalypse.

The other walls contained a wide range of mainly larger works, some in her primitive 'cubist' style, others seem to be more along the lines of the Blue Rider and others were simply her own. I loved the bright green parrots, the gardens with graceful trees and flower beds and the paintings of flowers in bright and airy paintings. Part of a wall was filled with an impressive array of female nudes in very different styles.

Further into the exhibition I found this painting, based on Russian embroidery styles. I loved the colour and the repetition of the patterns, a very complicated and detailed design. 'Design with Birds and Flowers' was a study for some textiles she was producing in around 1925-28. Quite a lot of her work seems to have its roots in Russian folklore and folk art.

There are lots of different types of works in this exhibition, not solely paintings. There are dress designs and stage costume designs as well as drawings of stage sets, there are book illustrations and photos of Natalia as a young woman. There are also her modernist versions of traditional Russian icons that seemed to please no-one except herself, with the avant-garde not accepting them as legitimate works and the church not accepting them as icons.

The final, large room of the exhibition is given over to her theatrical work and designs for the Ballet Russe and others. I couldn't help but break into a huge grin when I walked in and saw the costumes in big glass cases while the walls were covered in design sketches and mock-ups. It was interesting to see peoples' responses when they entered the room, with some heading straight for the walls and the framed works while others headed to the costumes - I assume some were more interested in the textiles and how they were made up while others prefer exhibits on paper?

I didn't recognise the play or performance many of the set designs were for but I loved this one - imagine being on stage surrounded by all this wild colour and imagine being in the audience? I wonder if it was ever actually built? It looked like it was all great fun and some of the costume designs were totally over the top.

Something I recognised immediately was the backdrop to the final scene in 'The Firebird', the mythical town with its wild array of buildings going up and up towards the sky. I'd seen a reproduction of this a few weeks ago at the Royal Opera House and I saw what I think was the original filling an entire wall at the V&A years ago at the Diaghilev exhibition. It's gorgeous.

I now know a lot more about Natalia Goncharova than I did before visiting the exhibition. Now that I've had time to think about the works and the breadth of Natalia's talents, I think I need to go back to see it again and look at the works afresh with a better understanding. The exhibition is on until September and is worth a visit to Tate Modern to see.

Bartolomé Bermejo at the National Gallery

There's a small exhibition about 'Bartolomé Bermejo: Master of the Spanish Renaissance' on at the National Gallery at the moment. It's one of its 'Room 1' exhibitions with everything in one room, namely Room 1 near the old main entrance. I quite like these small exhibitions since they focus down on a few works by an artist, often someone you've not come across before or know only vaguely. That's Bermejo to me.

The first thing I learned about him was that he wasn't actually called Bermejo and that 'bermejo' means 'reddish' in Spanish. His real name was Bartolome de Cardenas and he may have been Jewish who converted to Christianity before or during the Spanish Inquisition. He seems to have lived between about 1440 - 1501 but the records aren't very exact with historians assuming he died soon after the last documented mention of him. He certainly seems to have sought sanctuary from the Inquisition in Barcelona and the surrounding areas.

There are four works in the exhibition and the centrepiece is the rather tall and thin 'St Michael Triumphant' in his elaborate and very shiny armour as he defeats and casts out evil. His golden armoured feet are on the poster advertising the exhibition. It's an odd painting in many ways, particularly showing the kneeling donor well within scope of Michael's swinging sword poised for the killing blow. The shiny, elaborate armour and the many folds in the flying cloak capture our attention.

The long, thin, body of the warrior angel doesn't look terribly Spanish or, for that matter, Italian. It looks rather Flemish, somewhere in the traditions of the Northern Renaissance. There's no evidence, it seems, that he travelled north to study with the Flemish or German painters so how did he learn how to paint like this and why? The exhibition suggests that he studied the Flemish paintings that were coming into Spain but how did he do this? He wasn't a name and was quite itinerant so how did he get access to them? I suspect there's a lot more digging to be done around Bermejo.

The first work in the exhibition is the 'Triptych of the Virgin of Montserrat' that shows five religious scenes, with the Virgin and Child taking the central panel with a lovely landscape behind them. The landscape is rather detailed and ornate, more decorative than realistic but is that surprising given the scene and the rest of the triptych? I couldn't see what was on the outside of the two wings so I'll check the book about the show the next time I'm in the Gallery. I also can't remember who the archer-type bloke in the bottom right panel is meant to be so I'll check him as well.

A single large panel called the 'Despla Pieta' is so named because the local bishop of Barcelona, Despla, commissioned it and featured to the Virgin's right side. He, apparently, invited Bermejo to work in Barcelona to get away from the worst of the Inquisition in central Spain. I like the very round glasses the bishop is wearing and his studious reading of holy texts while his lord lies dying in front of him, somehow held up in the arms of a presumably old woman. Again there's a wonderful landscape in the background and the sugarloaf mountains of Monserrat in the far distance. This was the latest work in the small exhibition, dated from 1490 and I think you can tell from the detail and the quality of the painting.

The final work of the exhibition are four panels that would, presumably, have been side panels to a grand altarpiece but the central panel is missing. The panels show the 'Descent of Christ into Limbo', 'Christ with the Just in Paradise' (opposite), the 'Resurrection' and the 'Ascension'. The panels are dated between 1470-75, so were completed at around the same time as the 'Virgin of Montserrat' but I think the triptych is of far better quality. The spindly characters reminded me a bit of Bosch's characters (El Bosco). The scene shows Adam (the old man at the front) kissing Christ's hand, presumably in thanks for saving them all from eternity in Limbo. It seems a bit odd that the first Man should be kneeling as a supplicant to his descendant as well as his god. It's also odd that they're all naked with both Adam and Christ having some gauzy material that doesn't quite cover their modesty.

So there we have it, a small but carefully put together exhibition about Bermejo, the 'reddish' artist from Spain. It doesn't seem like a lot is known about him or maybe a lot is known but it hasn't been translated from Spanish? I suspect most of the academic works are in Spanish. Before this exhibition I was only familiar with the the 'Altarpiece of St Dominic of Silos' with the saint having a rather droopy oblong face surrounded by his finery and I saw that in the Prado in Madrid a few weeks ago. This exhibition has added another four works to my knowledge bank. I will go back and take another look the next time I'm in the National Gallery and have some time to spare.

Favourite Paintings: Titian 'The Vendramin Family'

Another of my favourite paintings is 'The Vendramin Family venerating a Relic of the True Cross' by Titian in the National Gallery. It took me many years to see this painting for the great work it really is. I must've walked past it without a second glance many times over the years but it was only when it was included in an exhibition of paintings owned by painters in 2016 that I finally looked at it properly. The painting was once owned by Van Dyck and that is why it was included in the exhibition.

The work was painted between 1540-45 and the old man in the centre is Andrea Vendramin who died in 1547 aged 66. He was a wealthy Venetian and it's thought that this family portrait was painted for his palazzo. His younger brother Gabriel is to his right in the red robe and the others are his sons. The relic they're venerating is linked to the family through an ancestor, also called Andrea, nearly 200 years earlier. Of course, I don't call him Andrea, I call him Lord Vendramin, as is proper.

This is Titian's largest family group and it's a very big painting in Room 9 in the National Gallery. It's thought that it was designed to be placed in a specific room in the Vendramin palazzo that was then changed, which would explain the odd positioning of the three boys on the left. I like the folds of the two mens' robes, the highlights, particularly on Gabriel's red robe, the fur lining and the detail of the texture of the fur. The foreshortening on Gabriel's hand stretching out to the viewer is quite incredible as he reaches out to viewers (presumably family members, friends and colleagues who might have access to the palazzo), almost inviting us to join in the veneration.

Gabriel looks up at the sacred relic but Lord Vendramin looks out at us, looking down. I can never decide what he's thinking and what his expression means. He's old and tired and those eyes have seen a lot over the years but he's still rich and powerful and has a large family to support him. A bit condescending? Probably. I imagine him getting fed up with all the tourists looking at him and his family, the tour groups chattering away loudly and the occasional screeches from young school groups. I wonder what he'd think if he knew this painting by Titian would be seen by millions of people every year, commoners from all over the world and countries that didn't exist when he was alive? Would he mind being gawped at for all these years? Or be proud that the family name still exists because of him?

I say hello to him when I pass this painting on my way from the Sainsbury Wing into the main gallery. I hope he welcomes a familiar face now and then.

Museo Sorolla in Madrid

I wasn't aware of Joaquin Sorolla until I saw the great exhibition of his work at the National Gallery earlier this year so when in Madrid last week I took the opportunity to visit his house that is now Museo Sorolla. It's about a 45 minutes walk north of the Prado, out in a residential district but with the traffic of a capital city all around.

Walk through the gate in the high brick wall and you find yourself in a delightful small garden with a fountain in the middle. Follow the signs to the right into another small garden with another fountain, statues, trees, shrubs and flowers and the dappled sunlight of Madrid. Walk past a little seating area and into the shop to buy a ticket for €3 and then walk out into the garden again to go up some lovely tiled steps and into the house.

The house is decorated and furnished as it was in Sorolla's day and you're instantly taken back 100 years in the quiet of the house, with it's high ceilings and relief from the heat and sun outside. Spacious corridors and rooms with ornate vases and statues on the furniture, large windows and with Sorolla's paintings on the walls. Some rooms are roped off so you only look at them from the doorway whereas you can walk into others to find the walls covered in paintings, usually quite high up on the walls above the tables and cupboards that belong in those rooms.

As I've come to expect from the National Gallery exhibition, many of the paintings are of Sorolla's wife and children, often outdoors but also some more formal portrait paintings. The walls were crammed with paintings but I really liked this one of his wife on the beach with lots of white in the parasol and dress for Corolla to play with the light and create highlights where he wanted on the dress and in the sea. It can't have been comfortable being dressed like that in a Spanish summer - women were so brave back then.

The walls are packed with paintings, as you can see above, with this painting of his daughter (Emelia, I think, the youngest daughter).

A painting that really caught my attention was this one called simply 'Fisherwomen'. It's quite large and dominates the second room along with another portrait of Sorolla's wife. It's easy to imagine these women waiting on the shore for their men to arrive with boats (hopefully) laden with fish that they will have to transport to market or to store, possibly to gut and prepare. They get the dirty work but they look hardy and ready for it.

It's not just the play of light or painting outdoors that made a painter an 'impressionist', it was also the choice of subject matter. The French Impressionists chose everyday scenes to paint, portraits of their friends, evenings out, workers and railways, factories and farmers. Sorolla's choice of subject matter is often interesting for it's own sake.

Upstairs on the next floor is a series of rooms that hold 223 small paintings on the walls that Sorolla did as sketches or notebook works to remind him of subject matter or colour combinations that he could use in larger works.

These paintings are all relatively small, individually framed in a variety of styles and hung together. Some were postcard sized and some were A4 sized - I don't think any were larger than A4 - and were of all sorts of subjects. Some were landscapes, some were of boats on dappled water, some flowers and gardens, swimmers, crowds... you name it, it was in there somewhere. Apparently he used them as reference pieces for his other paintings, seeing how colours worker together, clashed or complimented.

I was very impressed with some of these paintings, some clearly just dashed off and others were really more like careful studies, but all so small. Some are, apparently, painted on radom bits of cardboard, any material he found could be turned into a painting. I think all were painted in oils but I wonder what size brushes he used for these?

After seeing these lovely sketches you exit down what I assume were the servants' staircase and exit through some other rooms that are furnished as they would have been, with more Sorolla paintings on the walls.

I particularly liked this painting of his front garden and the fountain near the gate through the brick wall. Do you recognise it? It's one of my photos above. It's more overgrown in this painting but it's the same garden. He must've loved living here, near the centre of the city but far enough away to have some privacy and solitude.

While I loved seeing all these new paintings by Sorolla, something I really enjoyed was simply being in his beautiful house. It felt comfortable and homely, somewhere his children probably felt good in growing up. It was lovely with the high ceilings and open rooms, windows on most walls and the lovely furnishings. He was clearly well off but he produced enough paintings to deserve it.

The way out of the museum is through what was probably the front door, so you have to double back to get to the shop to buy the obligatory postcards (I also bought a book about his works in English). The gardens are beautifully maintained and, in the covered seating area is a statue of Sorolla, watching people come and go through his gardens and his house. He's there with his palette as if he's about to paint his garden again. If I had that garden then I'd certainly be painting it as well.

It was only when I unpacked when I got home and was examining all the tickets and random bits of paper you collect on a trip away that I looked at the back of the entrance ticket. It's a painting of his wife - yet another painting, and one that wasn't on display in the house (that I noticed). How fitting and how he must've loved her to have painted her again and again over so many years. She was always beautiful in his eyes. Their great grandchildren will be my age - I wonder what they think of this museum dedicated to their family and heritage? I loved it and will certainly go back again.

'Tosca' at the Royal Opera House

'Tosca' is my favourite opera and I've seen it three times in recent years at the Royal Opera House, the most recent viewing was the 512th performance of the opera by the Royal Opera.

It's the tale of Floria Tosca, a diva and the fiery lover of Mario Cararadossi, an artist and political radical who is arrested and tortured by the evil Baron Scarpia. We're in Rome in 1800 during the Napoleonic Wars and Scarpia tells us that he wants Tosca but not in a romantic love affair, he prefers to dominate and conquer then toss the conquered aside. With her lover arrested and tortured by Scarpia what is Tosca to do when he makes his wants known to our hero?

That is when Tosca gives us her great aria in which she sings that.

"I lived for art, I lived for love
I never harmed a living soul
With a discreet hand
I relieved all misfortunes I encountered"

Brave Tosca tells Scarpia she must save her lover so gives in to him, insisting that her lover should not be executed and that she gets safe passage to leave Rome. This she gets and, when Scarpia lays hands on her, she stabs him through the heart and kills him. Typically, Scarpia has lied and Cavaradossi is executed. Scarp's guards come for Tosca but she throws herself from the battlements of Castel Sant'Angelo to thwart them. Brave Tosca. It's a powerful, elemental tale of love and passion and power and lust.

Our Tosca was Kristine Opolais, Cavaradossi was Vittorio Grigolo and Scarpia was Bryn Terfel.

'The Firebird'/'A Month in the Country'/'Symphony in C' at the Royal Opera House

The latest triple bill of one act ballets at the Royal Opera House was 'The Firebird', 'A Month in the Country' and 'Symphony in C' - spectacle, narrative and pure ballet. What more could you ask for? I like the triple bills by the Royal Ballet since you always get a mix of styles and tempos, something there to suit everyone.

'The Firebird' was created for the Ballet Russe and, as such, is all about spectacle and that's we get. The Firebird flutters around the stage with grace moving to jerky, bird-like movements in her red and gold costume. The story is rather minimal and unlikely but you're not there for the story.

The prince eventually captures the Firebird but frees her as she gives him a magic feather to summon her when he's in trouble. That's just as well because he soon finds himself embattled by the local wizard and his minions so the prince pulls out the feather and, miraculously, there she is, the Firebird swopping round the stage destroying the minions. The prince is then free to marry a princess who was the wizard's prisoner and we get a grand finale with more and more people appearing on stage in lavish costumes as they attend the royal marriage. It's a spectacular scene with so many people walking on stage at the end.

One of the fun things was to see the background of a magical cityscape used in the final scene and recognising it from seeing an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2011 about Diaghilev and the Ballet Russe.

The wonderful Itziar Mendizabal danced the Firebird, Nehemiah Kish danced the prince, Claire Calvert danced the princess and Christopher Saunders was evil as the wizard.

'A Month in the Country' is based on the play by Turgenev and created as a ballet by Frederick Ashton. It's a regular in the repertoire of the Royal Ballet and is an elegant, narrative ballet, telling the story of the residents of the country house, the loves, the boredom, the everyday lives and the special. It was very well done and nicely staged and, after the spectacle of 'The Firebird', nicely changed the tone of the evening with its genteel dancing and muted colours. The lead character of Natalia was danced by a namesake, Natalia Osipova.

The final ballet was 'Symphony in C', a series of movements of pure ballet, not trying to tell any story, rather, just enjoying the sight and power of movement for its own sake. I loved the energetic dancing and the synchronised sections, especially when the stage was flooded by ballerinas in white tutus, creating an astonishing spectacle. There were a lot more ballerinas than male dancers who created a nice balance in their black tights and tunics.

The excitement mounted for me as more and more dancers joined the stage, groups of dancers coming together and separating, different movements and complex synchronised dancing. It was breathtaking. As the ballet advanced the stage was flooded with ballerinas in white tutus and it was a splendid sight, watching them create patterns on the stage and then breaking away before coming back to gather in synchronised perfection. I loved it! Another successful evening of very different ballets from the Royal Ballet.

'Rutherford and Son' at the National Theatre

'Rutherford and Son' is the latest revival at the National Theatre, a play from 1912 by Githa Sowerby, partially based on her own family experiences in Gateshead. It's the tale of old man Rutherford who rules his factory and his home with an iron will, dominating everyone around him, alienating his children and, as the local 'big man' keeping his family a step above everyone else.  This isn't good for anyone except him.

We meet Rutherford's eldest son that he's sent to Eton for a posh education and that ruins him - he has grown up with all sorts of expectations but none of the skills to achieve those. He's married beneath him, in his father's eyes, and it seems that he didn't marry for love, but only because he got his wife pregnant. We meet his daughter who is there solely to look after the house and her father, kneeling before him to take off his boots on command, alienated from the other local young folk but looking for a life of her. And we met the youngest son, who has become a member of the clergy but is laughed at by the locals. Rutherford also has a widowed sister and the foreman of the factory who he treats more like a son than his own sons.

The play is claustrophobic and tense, an intake of breath held far too long as the family wrangles and submissions continue until too much is said and done. The youngest son escapes in the early morning without saying goodbye and the eldest sone steals from his father's safe and leaves his wife and baby son to the mercy of his father. The daughter is banished for daring to have an affair with the factory foreman, who is also sacked. The daughter has nowhere to go since her lover doesn't come to her aid, but still bravely marches out into the world to create her own future. That only leaves the daughter-in-law who shows that someone in the family has some spine but I won't spoil it for you.

I'm pleased the National Theatre chose to revive this play, give it an airing and reacquaint theatre-goers with the work of Githa Sowerby - I'm very pleased to have seen this powerful drama. Roger Allam was great as the domineering father and I liked Justine Mitchell as the daughter. It's always nice to see Harry Hepple who had the minor role of the youngest son and Anjana Vasan as the strong daughter-in-law with brains and a spine was excellent. It was a very strong ensemble performance from all of the cast.