John Craxton exhibition reviews: Blogs and the media

Source: Your Paintings BBC.  © estate of John Craxton 2013. All rights reserved, DACS photo credit: Bristol Museum and Art Gallery 

The John Craxton exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum (I recommended it here) has generated quite a few reviews! 

Here's my selection:

Reviews in personal blogs

Juliet Miller

Juliet Miller says:
"Craxton is an interesting painter who has not been very widely known."

One of her favourites:  Four Figures in a Mountain Landscape
"It evokes Greek mythology but is painted with a very English hand. [...] I wanted to be in this rough, rocky landscape myself or even live the life depicted."

Conclusion:
"If you are interested in British painters of the pre- and post war period this view into the internal world of a private yet exuberant painter is certainly worth the trip."

Joseph Scissorhands

Joseph Scissorhands says:
"I had seen two of his paintings at Tate Britain fairly recently and was curious to see more."

One of his favourites:  Four Figures in a Landscape
"which shows his [Craxton's] mastery of composition, line and tone."

Conclusion:
"I enjoyed this show as it was a bright blast of Mediterranean sunshine on a wintry Cambridge morning."

Chris Priestley

Chris Priestley says:

"I like the exhibitions at the Fitzwilliam.  They tend to be small and a little bit eclectic."

One of his favourites:  

"my favourite being a small picture - a tempera I think - of a goat."

Conclusion:

"I don't know what I make of John Craxton's work.  [...]  Some of his work I really like, but there is a lot I really don't like.  His influences are possibly too readable."

Source:  Your Paintings BBC. © estate of John Craxton 2013. All rights reserved, DACS
photo credit: Tate

Reviews in the national pres

The Telegraph

 

Richard Dorment says:
 "John Craxton, who died in 2009, was the last Romantic. Or rather neo-Romantic."

One of his favourites:
Doesn't cite a favourite picture.  Still Life with Cat and Child does "amount to pastiche." 

Conclusion:
"He wasn’t an artist of the first rank but he was inimitable. This show is just the right scale and it comes with a beautifully illustrated book  ... by his friend Ian Collins."

The Spectator

 
Andrew Lambirth says:
"[Craxton's] finest paintings lead the viewer into a visionary universe of colour and light and bounding structures, whose taut rhythms release a feeling of euphoria in the beholder and beguile the imagination with intimations of visual splendour."

One of  his favourites:  Landscape, Malevizi, Crete
"...the finest example I’ve seen in recent years is ‘Landscape, Malevizi, Crete’ (1952), a superb balance of pattern and description. A painting of that quality and joyous, seemingly effortless execution, a perfect blending of linearity and colour, is missing from the Fitzwilliam."

 
Conclusion:
"Craxton is actually quite a lot better than the sum of the Fitzwilliam show, which offers only a very partial view of this complex artist."

The New Statesman 

 
Michael Prodger says:
" 'A World of Private Mystery: John Craxton RA (1922-2009)', a small but choice exhibition at the Fitzwilliam, is an overview and reminder of the career of this unfashionably joyous painter."


One of his favourites:  
"One of his most unaffectedly pleasurable paintings is a colour-saturated image of three sailors eating a meal of prawns, squid, sardines and salad that is mouth-watering in every sense." 

 
Conclusion:
"A man of great charm, Craxton became friends with Patrick Leigh Fermor in Greece and it is through his drawings for the scholar-traveller’s dust jackets that he is now best known." 

Source:  Christie's.  John Craxton, Grey Goat.

Reviews in blogs and the national press: a comparison

• Blogs are less wordy.  Sentences are shorter.  Blog authors adapt their prose to the way reader quickly scan the screen.



• Blogs are more personal.  Blog authors state personal preferences.  They tell stories about how and why they visited the exhibition.  One author said their friend had wanted to see it; another commented on the weather.


•  Reviews for the national press  are longer.  They include quotations (from the artist or the artist's friends).  They name influences.  They offer stylistic categories ('neo-Romantic', 'Arcadian').


•  Reviewers for the national press  sometimes assert their own credentials and authority.  The reviewer for The Spectator, for example, explained that he had himself curated two exhibitions.  Perhaps they feel the need to do this because they are getting paid?


•  Reviews for the national press can be a bit pretentious and formalist.  Phrases like taut rhythms or colour-saturated don't tend to appear in blog reviews.


•  Reviewers for the national press make more of the artist's reputation and the question of artistic quality:  not an artist of the first rank or unfashionably joyous or quite a lot better than the sum of the Fitzwilliam show.

What type of review do you prefer?  Click on the little pencil below (where it says 'no comment' or 'comments') and leave a comment. 

Also: judge for yourself and visit the exhibition.  John Craxton, Fitzwilliam, ends 21 April.

MA Children's Book Illustration Degree Show 2014

Do you want to take your children somewhere to look at art?  Do you want to revisit your own childhood?

Or do you simply want to see some absolutely stunning art work by the new generation of illustrators?

Then visit the Degree Show of the amazing Master of Arts in Children's Book Illustration at Cambridge.

Here's my pick:

© Hrefna Bragadottir

A whimsical creature that reminds  me of Dr Seuss.  Gorgeously spare.


If you like any of the pictures, do click on the illustrator's name to visit their website.  These artists have amazing websites!!  Such fun for children to look at, too.

© Irene Dickson

You can dream yourself into this magical garden.  I love the little red wellies, and the big dragonfly.

© Jo Weaver

A lone bear swimming through what could be a remote lake in Canada.  Atmospheric and melancholy.  And makes you want to know more.

© Renata Galindo

Crisp, minimal drawing and composition, and such fun:  mermaid being serenaded by pirate.  Love the hair and the pirate's gesticulating hand.  Also the scritchy-scratchy clouds.

© Melissa Castrillon

Summertime frolicking.  A great happy person in a fabulous jungley frock.

© Carol Reynoldson

Witchy night-time magic.  This takes you to another world.

© Joy Rutherford

Children will enjoy the moving animation of this story-in-motion. Watch the shadow play on the monitor.  Reminds me of the famous German paper-cut animation film maker, Lotte Reiniger.  And of Indonesian shadow puppet plays.

© Nan Deng

A quiet scene, like moments from a Wong Kar Wai film.  Even the juxtaposition of (close-up) foot and figure in front of mirror is like an edit in a movie.

© Sarah Palmer

Hands-on fun for little (and big) children:  lift the flap book of little monsters eating things.

© Julie-Anne Graham

People eating and drinking: a genteel and very, very English afternoon tea visit.  Jolly lady in lace blouse entertains little tousle-haired child, and there's so much to look at - it's like an anthropology lesson in how to be English:  overstuffed armchair, flowery cushions, etagéres with cup cakes and sandwich slices sans crust, arts-and-crafty wallpaper, and a lovely communion between the generations.  Through the window: not the expected rural scenery but (surprise) something reminiscent of Canary Wharf in London.

© Monika Filipina Trzpil

The eating theme continues, this time with fanciful animals at a picnic.  Hooray!  (They all seem to shout.)  Don't you want to be there and pour yourself some tea from that spouty thermos?

© Alexandra Clarke

More animals.  Children's illustrators love animals!  These pigs intrigue me because the scene is plucked from a story. I want to know what happens next.  And isn't that one of the hallmarks of a good story?

Is that what illustration is?  Telling a story in images?  Sometimes to accompany text?

© Jessica Colón

This sassy person seems more stand-alone but I think she's a character out of a story.  I want to know her name (is it Bijou?) and what she will do next.  And what she keeps in that cheeky red handbag!

This is not exhaustive, by the way.  I only had my mobile phone on me so not all my pictures turned out very well.  You can see how much there is to look at (and small children will have fun running round the mezzanine gallery -- I remember my son throwing paper airplanes from the railings...)

MA Children's Book Illustration, degree exhibition at the Ruskin Gallery, in the Cambridge School of Art, at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge.

Ends 13 March!  Don't miss it!

© Emma Armitage.

I end with these magnificent guinea pigs!  I could look at them for hours, making up names and personalities.  Some remind me of guinea pigs we once kept....

Don't you love these illustrations?

Related posts:

John Lawrence woodcuts  to illustrate Philip Pullman

Three drawings at the Drawing Cube

Nine fun things to do with children in an art gallery

The Monuments Men: Art on Film

The Monuments Men

Spot the art

So I saw The Monuments Men (directed by George Clooney) last night.  If you don't wish to be spoilered, do not scroll down and please leave this page now!!!

Source: wegotthiscovered

On the whole, I found this film fairly mediocre, even annoying (the music! my ears -- and that from the usually impressive film composer Alexandre Desplat) and a times awful (Christmas song -- cringe).  But despite this, I still enjoyed much about this film. Why? 
  
Because of all the art!  

The first ten minutes, especially, were like a veritable 'Spot the artist' quiz, with me going, "ooh, there's the Ghent altarpiece!", "ooh, it's Velázquez", "ooh, is that a Reynolds or a Gainsborough?".  There was a veritable cornucopia of art overload in the scene pictured above:  like one of those marvellous "spot-the-artist" gallery paintings of the Flemish 17th century.

The Archdukes Albert and Isabella Visit a Collector's Cabinet, early 1620s, Walters Art Gallery, Boston.  Source: wikipedia.nl

Of course, the art works weren't 'real'.  This became blatantly obvious in the scene where a number of rolled-up paintings are shown with the painted sides of the canvas facing outwards.  (Who rolls paintings up with the fragile side exposed??)

But still!

Spot the art historian

Also, it's not often that I get to see my own profession on the big screen.  In fact, I only remember seeing an art historian in action once before,  in Mona Lisa Smile.  Here's Julia Roberts standing in front of an abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock painting.  (Yay.)

Mona Lisa Smile.  Source: talktalk.co.uk

Of course, the art historians (museum curators, Harvard professors, architects, collectors) in The Monuments Men don't behave exactly as art historians do.  For example, no art historian I know exclaims upon seeing this sculpture (abandoned by Nazis at Neuschwanstein Castle), "It's a Rodin!", as they do in the movie.

Source:  magazine.williams.edu

  (We would yell, "It's the Burghers of Calais!")

Also, art historians do not generally refer to pieces of art (movie-speak); we say works of art. (No doubt, police, criminals, superheroes and other professions that feature more heavily in the movies than do art historians cringe inside their skins all the time...)

But I can quibble only so much with a film that celebrates the love of paintings and sculptures.  Look at this scene, for example:  actors Dimitri Leonidas, John Goodman, George Clooney, Matt Damon and Bob Balaban -- all clustered around a table full of painting catalogues (I'm spying a black-and-white photo of Jan and Hubert van Eyck's Ghent altarpiece open on the page before them) and in front of an entire room full of ancient classical statuary.  Look, there's the Spinario [boy pulling a thorn from his foot]!  Look, there's the armless Venus de Milo!

Source:  mediasalon.com review

How Catholic is Catholic art?

Here's the movies' empty and looted Ghent altarpiece in a Bruges church (filmed on location, by the looks of it):

Source: wegotthiscovered

The Ghent altarpiece is exquisite.  It was lovely to see it on screen.  Not so sure about the repeated comments about the importance of this altarpiece to Catholics and because it was Catholic.  

Again, not something that art historians tend to say first and foremost:  we, above all, know about the importance of religion for the making of art (see my advent series) but art historians tend to say art before they say religion.   And certainly, we would not say that a work of art is important because it is important for one of the many creeds of this world.  No, a work of art is important because it is art.

The unfortunate side effect of what the movie-art historians were saying - this is important to Catholics - would be the implication that the Ghent altarpiece is therefore, somehow, not important to non-Catholics.  And that way iconoclasm lies.  

Before you know it, you're smashing other creeds' icons because they don't agree with your own, you're blowing up statues of Buddha in Afghanistan, you're staving in the faces of the saints in Ely Cathedral.

Eve, from van Eyck's Ghent altarpiece, 1430s; source: wikimedia

So I didn't like the movie-art historians harping on about the Catholicism.  And at any rate, the dots didn't join up because a few scenes later, they'd be extolling Picasso, van Gogh and Manet -- whose relationship to creeds is more complicated but whose works, in the film, were extolled only as Art.

This brings me to another interesting point about the film and the issue of art looting.

 Booty, spoils and trophy art

If you don't know what The Monuments Men is about:  it's based on the (true) story of a group of Allied art historians (in the widest sense) whose job it was to save art, architecture, archives and other artefacts of cultural heritage from being destroyed during World War Two.  

Part of their job was to save works from the ravages of fighting:  for example, to protect monuments from shelling.  Another part of their job was to retrieve art that had been looted by the Nazis and was kept hidden (and safe from shelling) in salt mines and other places around Germany and Austria.

Here are some movie-art historians rescuing looted works from a salt mine.  Not sure what the large painting on the right is (it looks like a 17th-century Dutch or Flemish scene, what with the tiled perspectival floor).

Source: wegotthiscovered

Now, in this context, the Ghent altarpiece has an interesting history.  Read a summary here.  The altarpiece had been looted before, most famously by Napoleon.  

Here is Napoleon Bonaparte, showing off the Apollo Belvedere that the French looted from the Vatican in 1797.

Napoleon Bonaparte and the Apollo Belvedere in the Louvre; source: fineartamerica

Part of the Ghent altarpiece was also stolen for the newly-founded Louvre museum in Paris.  The altarpiece was returned after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.  And then the Nazis stole it again in the 1940s.

And not only the Nazis were taking artistic spoils of war. The Russians brought back works as part of what was called Trophy Art.  Many of these works were never returned, and some were believed lost or destroyed until very recently.

Do you remember, for example, the spectacular re-emergence in the 1990s of Degas' picture of The Place de la Concorde, believed to have been lost but actually taken by the Red Army from the private collector Otto Gerstenberg's collection in May 1945 and deposited in the Hermitage Museum in what was then Leningrad?  (Now St Petersburg.)

Source: Wikimedia Commons. Edgar Degas, Place de la Concorde (Portrait of Viscount Lepic and his Daughters), 1875, Hermitage (formerly: collection of Otto Gerstenberg, Berlin)

Also in Russia, in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, is 'Priam's Treasure', taken from the Pergamon-Museum in Berlin, and before that dug up and taken from Troy in Turkey by Heinrich Schliemann in the 19th century.  It was believed 'lost' until 1993.

Priam's Treasure.  Discovered by Heinrich Schliemann. Source: Wikimedia.

Lootings upon lootings.  

The movie The Monumens Men made out that looting art was akin to genocide.  The 'evil' character of Stahl who collected looted art to be transported to Germany is, toward the end of the film, also revealed to have been a former death camp commandant.  A patently absurd career move and completely devoid of any link to reality.  Now I don't need my films to be totally 'realistic' but I don't like them to make misleading and misguided ethical points.  

No, looting art and murdering people is not the same, and I find the suggestion that they are offensive.

And yes, evil people can love art.  Art is not, in and of itself, morally or ethically 'right'.  That is one of the challenges of art.  And this would food for an entire new post...

Cambridge

Two things tie this film to Cambridge:  some of it was filmed nearby, and it features a Cambridge don.

 Remember the excitement about Clooney-and-Damon spotting last year in Cambridge?  Actual filming took place at the Duxford Air Museum (I blogged about Duxford here).

Here's one of the actors with one of the Duxford planes.  The Femme Fatale is herself an instance of popular art.  :-)

Source: wegotthiscovered

Ronald Balfour was a Fellow of King's College in Cambridge and one of the Monuments Men.  He was killed in 1945 when the church from which he was trying to save an altarpiece was shelled, in the town of Kleve in Western Germany, near the Dutch border.

The citizens of Kleve still remember Balfour.  In 1985, he was awarded a post-humous medal by the town, and he has a street and a local archive named after him.  In Kleve (or Cleves), he is honoured as a symbol of reconciliation who helped to save 'enemy' cultural heritage -- and wasn't always understood by other British soldiers.

Commemorating Ronald Balfour in Kleve.  Source:  Klevischer Verein

It would be nice if we had a memorial to Balfour here in Cambridge as well.

I leave you with an image of the Bruges Madonna by Michelangelo who features much in the movie.  And is a lovely, lovely sculpture.

Bruges Madonona.  Source:  Wikimedia.

Read all about it

Ronald Balfour

Balfour in Kleve (in German)

Monuments Women

history vs hollywood  (a really interesting comparison of 'facts' with 'fiction')


Have you seen the film?  What did you like about it?  And what not so much? 

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