A Blog of Bosh

See Heaven in a wild flower
[A review of Tate Britain’s Pre-Raphaelite Vision: Truth to Nature, until 3 May, by Rachel Campbell-Johnston.]
Art had been suffocated by an overlay of traditions and conventions, straitjacketed by stock academic formulas. A return to nature was Ruskin’s clarion call. “Go to nature in all singleness of heart,” he commanded in his first volume of Modern Painters, “. . . having no other thoughts but to penetrate her meaning . . . rejecting nothing, selecting nothing and scorning nothing.”
The Pre-Raphaelites and their followers did this quite literally. Leaving their stuffy artists’ studios (and the even stuffier compositions that had been concocted on Claudian principles inside them), they headed for the great outdoors, dedicated practitioners of plein-air painting some 20 years before French Impressionism and the era when Manet would paint Monet painting in his open boat. […]
Holman Hunt set off for the Holy Land in the company of Thomas Seddon and Edward Lear; his mission to bring authenticity to biblical depictions. He tramped to a spot “which few travellers visit and none revisit . . . the wretchedest place in the whole world” (the place he believed to be the location of the ancient Sodom, accursed of God) to paint his Scapegoat. Every hair of the sad, cowering creature � it died after the experience of being tethered in a tray of salt for months (animals were harmed in the making of this show) � is counted. Every feature of the mountainous geology is studied with painstaking accuracy.
And yet it was this obsession with geology and consequent realisations that the world was far older than biblical traditions suggested, that led to alternative theories that shook the foundations of faith and eventually led in some quarters to the foundation of a new religion � the religion of art. The birth of Aestheticism was heralded.
Times Online – Entertainment |18 February 2004

Wisdom of David Brent ‘more memorable than Shakespeare’
Shakespeare’s most famous quotations are less well known than the cringeworthy sayings of David Brent, the fictional middle-manager from The Office, a survey claimed yesterday…
Classic literature proved more recognisable than contemporary in only one instance. Thirty-two per cent of people knew that the owl and the pussy cat in Edward Lear’s verse took “some honey and plenty of money wrapped up in a five pound note”. But just 14 per cent knew that J K Rowling’s Harry Potter caught his train to school from King’s Cross station.
Telegraph | 4 February 2004

Pre-Raphaelite Vision: Truth to Nature
Pre-Raphaelite Vision is the first exhibition to focus solely on the deep fascination the Pre-Raphaelites had for the natural world and enables visitors to explore a whole new dimension of their work. The exhibition brings together around 150 works including celebrated paintings such as William Holman Hunt�s Our English Coasts (Strayed Sheep) 1852, John William Inchbold�s Anstey�s Cove, Devon 1853-4 and of course John Everett Millais� Ophelia 1851-2, all of which explore the scientific, religious and social culture of the age.
[I don’t know whether any Lear paintings are included, but, while no pre-raphaelite himself, he was no doubt influenced by Holman Hunt in his landscape painting.]
Tate Britain | 12 February – 3 May 2004

It’s hard to share the tastes of a collector
Travels with Edward Lear – National Gallery of Scotland

AS the author of such quaintly endearing Victorian-era “nonsense” as The Owl and the Pussycat and other such silly-but-enduring rhymes, you would expect a collection of artwork by Edward Lear to reflect a particularly skewed interpretation of the world.
But not this one, unfortunately – it�s about as traditional a series of watercolour landscapes as it�s possible to imagine.
In fact, Lear did illustrate the rhymes he created, but this display shows only one particular strain of his work.
It represents the tastes of Scottish historian and art collector Sir Stephen Runciman, who passed away in 2000, and whose Lear collection was subsequently accepted by the Government in lieu of inheritance tax and passed to the National Gallery.
So what we are left with, then, is a comprehensive – but not altogether high quality – catalogue of Lear�s trips overseas during the nineteenth century.
It�s easy to see how much inspiration Lear drew from such surroundings just by looking at his range of interests – as well as being a poet, a cartoonist, and a painter, Lear included musician and traveller among his preoccupations.
Judging by these works, then, it appears that Lear saw as part of his travelling remit an obligation to catalogue some of the places and sights he saw – not bad work if you can get it, considering many of the sun-kissed hillsides and beaches on show here. But Lear saw himself chiefly as a painter of oils, and it was these which he expected to be able to sell and live off.
Therefore, a lot of these watercolours are pen drawings, lightly coloured and with little scribbled notes on them as a reminder of topographical details when it came to painting the real thing.
A quote from Runciman, at one point, expresses the irony of what eventually happened, however, with collectors in the early twentieth century doing a brisk trade in Lear watercolours, and all but letting the oils stagnate. You can only assume they were getting them on the cheap, though, because there�s very little here to actually enthuse about, never mind get excited.
Of the 34 works which formed the bequest, 20 are on display. The first of these is also the first piece which Runciman bought, a half-formed sketch of Kinopiastes, Corfu. For sure, it gives a certain air of the locale, while the sketched topography is precise enough. It�s the half-finished element which grates – presumably only collectors could get excited about this because it�s a work in progress.
There are plenty others like it, like Potamos, Corfu and Metzovo. Again, they may have brought Runciman no end of enjoyment, but not to the casual observer.
A sketch of Mount Athos from near Niacoro, meanwhile, is described as “undoubtedly one of the most charming of all (Lear�s) watercolours from the Runciman collection” – presumably only to someone who�s charmed by a box of Ferrero Rocher and a bunch of daffodils, because this near-monochrome clump of trees is not a patch on Lear�s complete work.
The exhibition does also contain a handful of finished watercolours, and they really do have a certain charm. The individually-titled Suli, Marathon and Plains of Canea, Crete and Sparta are lovely, blending blue mountains, white sky and lush green grass to gorgeous effect.
If only the whole display had been like that – but then, there�s no accounting for the tastes of a collector. [DAVID POLLOCK]
Scotsman.com News | 13 January 2004

Exhibition shows more watercolourful side to Edward Lear
EDWARD Lear is best known as the writer of much loved nonsense verses such as The Owl and the Pussycat, but a new Edinburgh exhibition at the National Gallery of Scotland aims to showcase his legacy as an inspired Victorian artist.
Travels with Edward Lear: Watercolours from the Runciman Collection contains 32 watercolours by Edward Lear (1812-1888) and opens on The Mound. The watercolours have come from the estate of Sir Stephen Runciman (1903-2000) and were accepted by the government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the National Gallery of Scotland last year. These particular works are all depictions of sites in the eastern Mediterranean that Lear visited during the 1850s and 1860s and provide insights into the pre-occupations of one the most engaging of Victorian travellers.
Christopher Baker, the chief curator for the National Gallery of Scotland, said Lear�s prowess as an artist was often overlooked.
He said: “Lear is best known as a writer of nonsense poems, but even The Owl and the Pussycat he illustrated beautifully himself.
“He started drawing commercially from the age of 16 and when he reached 25 he turned to landscape painting and spent the next ten years in Rome refining his skills.
“Aside from publishing travel books he was even invited to give a series of 12 drawing lessons to Queen Victoria,” said Mr Baker. “This exhibition focuses on his travels around Greece and surrounding islands which he felt was a part of the world artists had yet to do justice to at the time.
“He engaged very directly with the stunning landscape around him especially in places like Corfu and once famously continued on a climb to paint Suli, on mainland Greece, when his canteen of materials fell over a steep cliff after his mule stumbled on a narrow path.”
Scotsman.com News | 12 January 2004