Canaletto at the Holburne, Bath

It is difficult to imagine anyone taking a strong dislike to the art of Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697-1768). Representational certainly, camera obscura produced even, nonetheless it provides an invaluable, almost photographic, record of the Europe of nearly 300 years ago. From 1746, when he was invited by the Duke of Northumberland to record the construction of the new Westminster Bridge, to 1755, Canaletto painted English scenes, mostly in London. Canaletto Celebrating Britain, now at the Holburne Museum, Bath after a first showing at Compton Verney, brings together major works from his time here.

The son of the painter Bernardo Canal, and hence known as Canaletto, was born into a townscape shaped by architects like Andrea Palladio (1508-80). So starting the show with a reminder of Canaletto's Venice and two fine canvases from Manchester of about 1740, Church of the Redentore (below) and Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, seems wholly appropriate.

Canaletto's Britain then follows, starting with two of Compton Verney's own scenes of the London pleasure gardens of the day, The Interior of the Rotunda, Ranelagh, London (1754) and The Grand Walk, Vauxhall Gardens, London (c1751, below):

followed by Dulwich Picture Gallery's View of Walton Bridge (c1754, poster above) and the Royal Collection's two Views from the Terrace of Somerset House (1750-51) of the City and of Westminster (below):

The Old Horse Guards from St James' Park (c1749, below) is complemented by the rarely shown c1752 view of the New Horse Guards.

Canaletto's paintings are large so there is an inevitable loss of detail in small scale reproductions. A close look at the originals reveals some pleasing features, for example the coach and horses going over Walton Bridge and the carpet beaters at work near Horse Guards:

And they invariably flatter the English climate by making it resemble the Italian spring of an aristocrat's Grand Tour.

Finally, Canaletto's legacy is demonstrated in works by Samuel Scott - An Arch of Westminster Bridge (c1751, below):

 and William Marlow's dramatic and imaginary fusion of London and Venice, Capriccio: St Paul's Cathedral and a Venetian Canal (c1795, below):

Although the construction of Georgian Bath in the Palladian style had begun in the early 1700s and the Circus was under construction at the time he left England, sadly for us Canaletto does not seem to have had the opportunity to paint in the fashionable spa.

Canaletto Celebrating Britain ends in Bath on 4 October and will be at Abbot Hall, Kendal from 22 October to 13 February 2016.

Julian Opie at the Holburne, Bath

One of the surprises provided by Julian Opie: Collected Works at the Holburne Museum in Bath is that it is his first one-person exhibition in a UK museum for over ten years, a period in which his work has been highly visible, for example on the covers of Blur: The Best Of and the National Portrait Gallery’s Visitor Guide (Alex, Bassist. Darren, Singer. Dave, Drummer. Graham, Guitarist, 2000 and still from animation, Julian with t-shirt, 2005, below):

Another surprise in the show is  Opie’s personal collection of art which includes sculpture from ancient Egypt and Rome, 17th and 18th century paintings and sculpture (works by Lely, Reynolds and Romney) and Japanese prints. Items from his collection occupy half of the display in the Holburne, juxtaposed with the other half which consists of works by the artist since about 1995 (Lely’s Portrait of an unknown woman, Opie’s At home with Maria 2, 2011, below left and right):

Opie makes use of new technology such as 3D printing, vector drawing and computer-animated LED and LCD screens, eg Marina in purple shawl, 2010:

Opie’s technology-based work is often associated with that of Michael Craig-Martin, his teacher at Goldsmiths, though I was reminded of Patrick Caulfield’s use of flat areas of simple colour bounded by black outlines. Animation allows more than one of a sitter’s facial expressions to be revealed in succession (eg Imogen, 2013), thought-provoking in terms portraiture’s ability to convey personality, given the Opie style’s lack of detail.

3D scanning and printing was used to produce the sculpture Reed 1 2012 (below left) which then had to be hand-painted, one of the sources for this being an Egyptian mask, 664-332 BC, (below right):

Other small-scale works fall between sculpture and painting, for example two of a series in collaboration with Royal Ballet dancers and staff: Caterina dancing, 2010, 10 Blue and 09 Red, both silkscreen on painted wood, below left and right:

Three sculptures (Aniela at the spring, 2011; 3 men walking, 2008; Peeing boy, 2012, right) are available for all to see in the garden of the Holburne Museum where Julian Opie: Collected Works continues until 14 September. The show will move to the Bowes Museum from 25 October to 22 February 2015. The exhibition catalogue includes interesting essays by Sandy Nairne, the Director of the NPG, and Julian Opie, and commentaries by the artist on the works on display.

Wright of Derby at the Holburne Bath

Joseph Wright (1734 – 1797), often known as Wright of Derby, ought to be the techies’ favourite painter, if only because of one of the masterpieces of British painting, his An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump 1778 (below left), now in the National Gallery in London. In the 40 years or so of Wright’s life as an artist, a mere 18 months was spent in the city of Bath. It is this brief period which the exhibition, Joseph Wright of Derby, Bath and Beyond, at the Holburne Museum in Bath seeks to illuminate.

Wright had spent nearly 20 years in Liverpool and two years in Europe before arriving in Bath at the start of the season in the winter of 1775. His intention was to take advantage of the fashionable spa’s demand for portraiture after the departure for London of Gainsborough, whose landscape work around Bath was the subject of an exhibition at the Holburne in 2011. It has to be said that many of the exhibits in this show provide context for Wright’s time in Bath rather than stem directly from it. So on entry we see the The Alchymist 1771/1795 (above right) and later Vesuvius in Eruption, with a View over the Islands in the Bay of Naples 1776/80 (poster) and the fine The Annual Girandola at the Castel Sant'Angelo, Rome 1775–1776 (below).

The Italian pictures were finished in Bath and put on view for a fee before Wright left for good in June 1777, but obviously had no direct local connection. The exhibition does, however, include some portraits of prominent locals like the Rev Dr Wilson and Miss Catherine Macaulay 1776, “painted for reputation” (left) and Agnes Witts, nee Travell, 1776 (below right), but Wright, who produced many portraits of Derbyshire’s pioneers of the industrial revolution, seemed to have found his Bath clients difficult: “fantastical and whimmy”. The oval grisailles of William Hayley and Eliza Hayley 1776 (below left) are well worth seeing and overall the exhibition provides an opportunity to view a body of Wright’s work, something normally only possible at Derby Museum and Art Gallery.

The Holburne has two Wrights of its own, which a visitor might miss on the landings: The Dead Soldier, 1789 (below left) and a recent gift, Elizabeth Balguy née Gould c1783 (below right).

Joseph Wright of Derby, Bath and Beyond will be at the Holburne until 5 May and at Derby Museum and Art Gallery later in the year.

Two exhibitions in Bath

Last year the Holburne Museum in Bath showed Presence: The Art of Portrait Sculpture which explored whether sculptors pursue realism or idealisation when they create solid portraits. Their lateset exhibition, Characters: Portraits and People from the Arts Council Collection, looks at the parallel traditions of observation and invention in the painting of people, particularly appropriate since the Holburne’s permanent collection includes some fine British eighteenth-century examples of the genre.

The Director of the Holburne, Alexander Sturgis, and his staff have again demonstrated their curatorial expertise when faced with the challenge of selecting a small number of choice works (Sturgis talks about some of their choices here). The range of artists, all British post-War, is indicated in the poster alongside Richard Hamilton’s Hugh Gaitskell as a Famous Monster of Filmland 1964. Frank Auerbach, Lucien Freud (portrait of Lord Rothschild above right) and Euan Uglow (German Girl, 1960s, above left) feature among the painters from life and the works of imagination include studies from Peter Blake and Francis Bacon. I particularly liked Maggi Hambling’s Frances Rose (3) 1973 and thought Jeffery Camp’s Laetitia Picking Blackcurrants 1967 (below, left and right) full of period charm, but everyone will have their own favourites. 

Characters: Portraits and People from the Arts Council Collection continues until 7 January 2014.

William Scott: Simplicity and Subject at the Victoria Art Gallery has now closed. Scott (1913 – 1989), although born in Scotland and spending his youth in Northern Ireland, spent much of his artistic life in the Bath area and was for a time Senior Painting Master at Bath Academy of Art. In his twenties he spent time in France and in Cornwall where he met Laura Knight and her husband. Later influences on his work included Picasso and the New York abstract expressionists – Mark Rothko spent time at his Somerset home. Although Scott was an RA and had contributed to the British exhibit in the XXIX Venice Biennale, his work seems to have become less well-known in recent years, so his centennial seems to have been an appropriate time to rekindle interest. Below are his Still Life with Candle 1950 and the more abstract Slagheap Landscape 1953 (from the Arts Council Collection). During a spell working in Berlin he encountered a blue pigment which led to his All Blue 1964. Another striking abstract was Monotone Still Life 1955 in black white and grey. I expect that the owner of that little gem of a painting, Still Life with Pears c1956, is glad to have his or her picture back!

There is a major retrospective of Scott's work now at the final stage of its tour at the Ulster Museum.

Portrait Sculpture at Holburne Bath

Presence: The Art of Portrait Sculpture, now on at the Holburne Museum in Bath is a small but cleverly selected exhibition exploring whether sculptors are pursuing realism or idealisation when they create solid portraits. The show starts with an immediate challenge in the form of a waxwork of Henry Moore (left), who rejected sculpture as portraiture, then moves on through classical sculpture and death masks to posthumous representation in the form of various busts of Shakespeare. These may have been tenuous as likenesses but were considered appropriate for Britain’s greatest literary figure.

Some fine 18th century busts (in particular Louis François Roubiliac’s of fellow-sculptor Joseph Walton) lead on to more modern pieces. Two sculptors’ depictions of their wives, Conrad Dressler’s 1898 coloured bust and Don Brown’s full-length Yoko XXI (right), may be 110 years apart but raise similar issues over artistic objectivity. The latter inevitably contrasts with the demure bronze Degas dancer nearby.

The 20th century is represented by portrait busts from the 1920s by Epstein and Frank Dobson (Sacheverell Sitwell, left) and later, and even less figurative, works by Giacometti and Brancusi. Contemporary works by Daphne Wright (double portrait Sons’ Heads) and Ron Mueck’s over-sized self-portrait Mask II (below), like Brown’s, raise in different ways the possibility of being too realistic to be true.



This thought-provoking show continues until 2 September .

Landscapes in Oxford and Bath

In a post back in August I remarked in passing “should France ever leave the Eurozone, which may seem unlikely”. Now we are being told that the breakup of the euro is the subject of contingency planning in finance ministries, embassies and the headquarters of multinationals across the world. What could be a better way to escape briefly from the encircling economic gloom than two visits to Arcadia?

The Ashmolean in Oxford is showing Claude Lorrain: The Enchanted Landscape, the first major exhibition of his work in over a decade. Claude Gellée (c.1600–1682), spent most of his working life in Rome, but his origins were in the commune of Chamagne in the Duchy of Lorraine, (now in Vosges (88) in France; never Champagne as the Ashmolean press pack states, perhaps wanting to inject some fizz). His biographical details are unclear, he may even have been trained originally as a pastry-cook, but by his thirties he was settled in Rome and had begun to make a name for himself by painting port scenes and landscapes. During his long artistic career he had the patronage of royalty as well as popes and cardinals.

The exhibition is organised in three sections: firstly, sketches and drawings from the Roman countryside; then thirteen paintings mostly with classical (Aeneas and Dido in Carthage, left) or religious themes, all providing the enchantment promised by the show’s name; finally, etchings including the fascinating series of the fireworks in Rome in 1637.

Claude’s work was encountered and collected on the Grand Tour by the English aristocracy who later laid out their parklands in the spirit of his pastoral idyll. One English artist he had some influence over was Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88) whose landscapes are the subject of the Bath Holburne Museum’s second major exhibition since redevelopment, Gainsborough’s Landscapes: Themes and Variations. Although only six paintings are shown, these were well-chosen and helpfully complemented by drawings and prints, all skilfully curated by Susan Sloman. Gainsborough’s fame and livelihood came from his portraiture, particularly during the years 1759-74 when he lived in Bath, but as he said:

I’m sick of portraits and wish very much to take up my viol de gamba and walk off to some sweet village where I can paint landskips and enjoy the fag end of life in quietness and ease.

Perhaps this shows in his portrait of Mr and Mrs Andrews (below) in the National Gallery, London, which, although telling us all we might want to know about them, still manages to be 50% landscape.

Gainsborough painted a romantic view of the countryside around Bath but populated it with more realistic inhabitants, Peasants Returning from Market (left) or looking after pigs, than Claude’s paintings feature. The exhibition reminds us of our encircling economic realities when it explains that Bath’s popularity as an all year spa and resort depended on winter heating provided by the coal mined a few miles to the south of the city.

Economic reality may also be intruding in the way that shows are increasingly augmenting a relatively small number of paintings with drawings, etchings and so on (Table below). In so far as these lesser works add depth and focus and encourage a more scholarly approach in visiting exhibitions, this is probably not entirely a retrograde step. Anyway, given that paintings are inevitably more expensive to transport and insure, we are probably going to have to get used to it.

Claude Lorrain: The Enchanted Landscape continues at the Ashmolean until 8 January and then can be seen at the Städel Museum, Frankfurt from 3 February to 6 May 2012. Gainsborough’s Landscapes: Themes and Variations will be in Bath until 22 January and then the appropriate parkland surroundings of Compton Verney from 11 February to 10 June 2012. Let’s hope the eurozone will survive for both.

Peter Blake at the Holburne Museum, Bath

Sir Peter Blake, RA will be 80 next year and spent 10 years of his long artistic career living near Bath (SW England). Appropriately the reopening of Bath’s Holburne Museum is being marked by a show he has curated: Peter Blake A Museum for Myself. Blake is best known for his Pop art, particularly the cover for the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper LP. He is a compulsive and eclectic collector – model elephants, shell teapots, images of Monroe and other curious things are artfully arranged in this show. The displays seem to draw even the most sceptical visitors into Blake’s view of the world. There are family tickets available for this enjoyable summer holidays exhibition which runs to 4 September. Access to the Holburne’s permanent collection of art and other decorative objects is free.

The architect of the extension to the Museum, Eric Parry, has managed to attract the praise of both the Guardian and the Telegraph, no mean achievement in itself. Designing a substantial addition to a neo-classical Georgian building in Bath must be one of the more challenging commissions to receive. A extension faithful to the existing style can disrupt the original, probably carefully considered, proportions, and, even if well-executed, may look flaccid – Bath has some of those. A bold, but inevitably discontinuous, contemporary addition risks attracting the wrath of the “monstrous carbuncle” brigade. Parry chose the latter and it seems to have worked well. The frontage facing Great Pulteney Street has not been affected, while the rear view is dominated by the extension which conceals most of the original. 

Because of the confines of the Holburne’s grounds, there are only a few sightlines of the inevitably tricky interface between the old and new.

The Holburne extension cost over £11 million provided by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The ground floor, in the modern way, is given over to a café, so at a rough guesstimate that might be about about £4000 to £5000 per sq ft of gallery space useful for exhibits. Most of the visitors didn’t look the lottery ticket-buying type.