Happy May Bank Holiday

 

This is May Morning on Magdalen Tower, by William Holman Hunt, a major Pre-Raphaelite painter. No apologies for posting this picture again - I covered it last May Day, along with the usual snarkey-ness about May Day traditions.  This picture is an exquisite example of the artistic principles of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner. They designated themselves pre-raphaelite because they considered Raphael's (1483 to 1520) classical poses and elegant compositions to have been a corrupting influence on the academic teaching of art.  Here's Raphael's portrait of the Duke of Urbino - judge for yourself-

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood sought a return to the abundant detail, intense colours and complex compositions of Quattrocento Italian art. They particularly objected to the influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds, (1723-1792) founder of the English Royal Academy of Arts, whom they called "Sir Sloshua". Well, they were young men at the time, fired by vision, filled with enthusiasm and kicking against the Establishment. 

Here's Sir Sloshua's portrait of Lady Elizabeth Delmé and Her Children, 1777-1779 -

Sir Sloshua's work and sloshy in general, meant, according to William Michael Rossetti:  "anything lax or scamped in the process of painting ... and hence ... any thing or person of a commonplace or conventional kind".  The Pre-Raphaelites defined themselves as a reform movement, and considered mimesis, imitation of nature, as central to the purpose of art. 

So, look again at May Morning (1890):

The freshness of the sky, the sense of height and distance, the swift movement of the birds and clouds, the sun on the faces of the choristers, the aged figure to the extreme right contrasting with the youth and vitality of the boy choristers, the depiction of sturdy, vigorous adulthood in the small group of clerics, the shocking deep red of the priestly gown leading the eye into the heap of vibrant May flowers scattered on the pitched roof of the tower, the subtlety of the many shades of white of the choristers' surplices, lit by the early morning sun, and the central image of the pretty boy, with his golden curls, just about to discard the white lily, symbol of virgin innocence, onto the piled flowers at his feet - there's nothing sloshy here. It is carefully detailed, finely painted, with a mastery of craft skills. It is actually quite small. Here it is in the frame designed for it by its creator - a depiction of the sun.

There's a whole separate craft skill in framing, and, of course, fashion dictates how a thing should look - modern sensibility would expect this painting to be in an understated plain black frame. Which would miss Holman Hunt's religious reference.

Now, some would disparagingly and erroneously call May Morning chocolate box art.

 Chocolate box art originally referred literally to decorations on chocolate boxes. Over the years, however, the terminology has changed; it is now applied broadly as an often pejorative term to describe paintings and designs that are overly idealistic and sentimental.

Using his own paintings of children, flowers and holiday scenes Richard Cadbury, the son of the founder of Cadbury's, introduced such designs to his chocolate boxes in the late 19th century.  Renoir's paintings have been described as "chocolate box" and have been derided by Degas and Picasso for being happy, inoffensive scenes. Constable's landscapes have also been so described. It's just fashion, really, and the accident of Richard Cadbury decorating his chocolate packaging has given the art snobs a handy sneer. 

The dissemination of comparatively cheap cameras and photographic processes rendered obsolete all those artists making a small living by faithfully depicting, as realistically as they could, portraits and landscapes to hang on the walls of the middle class. The invention of photography initially spurred artists on to be more photo-realistic than a photograph. Richard Estes (born May 14, 1932, in Illinois) is regarded as one of the founders of the  international photo-realist movement of the late 1960s. His paintings generally consist of reflective, clean, and inanimate city and geometric landscapes. Here's one:

Apart from the photo-realist movement, photography freed artists from the earnest labour of making paint on canvas look like something - realism, and allow them to ditch the trade skills and produce conceptual and abstract art. This sort of thing:

Venice, by Howard Hodgkin.

Or this, The Green Chateau, by Hodgkin, 

which sold for £1.3 million as a part of Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction on October 6th, 2017. Here's the blurb: "With its opulent palette of strong primary colours, it’s a prime illustration of Hodgkin’s breakthrough period, executed between 1976-1980. Challenging the boundaries between painting and frame, the artist covers the latter with a sumptuous, bright red stroke, expanding the limits of the emotive image with a geometric narrative unfolding at its centre."

You'll have come across the aphorism: I may not know much about art, but I know what I like.

It really should be re-rendered as: I may not know much about art, but I like what I know,

Or:  I may not know much about art, but I know about money. 

Which is amply demonstrated by auction audiences clapping the money when a painting achieves a price that would have made the safely-dead artist go cross-eyed.  

There's an exhibition on at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery:   ‘Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts and Crafts Movement’.

Birmingham has the best and most complete collection of Pre-Raphaelite art in the world. Selected from its outstanding and internationally renowned collection, Victorian Radicals presents paintings, drawings, jewellery, glass, textiles and metalwork that explored a radical vision for art and society. The collection also celebrates Birmingham’s historic importance as a centre for the Arts and Crafts.

The exhibition explores three generations of progressive British artists working between 1840 and 1910: the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and their circle; the second wave of Pre-Raphaelite artists who gathered around Rossetti from the late 1850s, including William Morris and Birmingham-born Edward Burne-Jones; and a third generation of designers and makers associated with the Arts and Crafts movement, working from the turn of the century to just before the First World War.

By the early 20th century, Birmingham’s School of Art was one of the most important centres in Britain for progressive art and design. Women artists were particularly significant in the School, including the painter Kate Bunce and her metalworking sister, Myra; stained-glass designer Florence Camm; enameller Fanny Bunn; and embroiderer, painter and designer Mary Newill.

With more than 160 works on display, by artists such as Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Elizabeth Siddall, the exhibition’s paintings, drawings, watercolours, and decorative arts explore the relationship between art and nature and the search for beauty in an age of industry.

Melody by Kate Bunce, Birmingham Museums

Set of Curtains, Mary J. Newill

If you are anywhere near Birmingham, do go along. You'll need to leave your car behind, though, because the city fathers, who have driven the city into bankruptcy, have imposed a car tax of £8.00 per day. I'd take the Mercedes in and hang the expense, but I live 603 miles and a sea crossing away.