Madame Moitessier by Ingres: Art through Words National Gallery London

27^th October 2012

The subject of October’s Art through Words was the portrait of Madame Moitessier by Ingres.  Sara Dibb led the session assisted by Stephen Barrett.

 

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/calendar/art-through-words-27-october-2012

In January, Sara had drawn a perspective tactile diagram of Paris By Night by Pissarro and repeated the idea with a tactile reproduction of the painting of Madame Moitessier.  This seemed to be a little simpler and found total appreciation with all the visually impaired visitors for whom such large scale tactile representations are a new experience.  Some, like me, are familiar with the thermoform representations which are smaller and require some familiarisation with language of the senses in the artwork.    

 

Tactile reproduction of Ingres's portrait of Madame Moitessier

 

 

Sara introduced the painting with the reproduction and then introduced her tactile version.  Tracking the human body is familiar enough but Sara’s tactile version neatly illustrates the odd reflection in a mirror of the sitter.  (I was beginning to get the mirror touch or even mirror neurons references as a witty remark but kept quiet.)

Ingres had taken a long time to finish this picture and had run off another portrait in between.  The sitter has made an unusual gesture with her right hand in jabbing her pointing finger into her head, thumb hidden with remaining fingers pointing downwards.  One of us suggested that Victoria Beckham (Posh Spice) used this pose.  I tried to copy the gesture.  She is abslument couvert de beaucoup de bling!

Following an example of Empress Eugenie, the dress is of Lyons silk and has printed (not embroidered) patterns.  On the left there is one of those oriental fans (table tennis bats) which I noted in the paintings on show in the Impression Collection of Clark at the RA.  (http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/royal-academy-from-paris-taste-for.html)  The tactile diagram allowed us to follow the detail of the picture and we were able to locate the expanded pieces with references to “landmarks”

As well as describing the picture, Sara also told us about its history and how it came into the National Gallery by Sir Kenneth Clark (Civilisation) in 1936.   There is also an interesting story about the original frame for the picture which had become separated and later reunited when on show in the National Gallery.  The National Gallery is having a photographic exhibition and a similar pose of someone in a Mary Quant outfit is positioned next to the Ingres. 

Our walk through the gallery took us past the Turner Temeraire picture which I recognised, though on the way back to the Sainsbury Wing I thought I could detect a Cuyp landscape only for Stephen to say that it was by Claude. At least I was in the right region with an Italianate landscape. 

Sara had been wearing a printed top much in the fashion of Madame Moitessier.  I had been sitting next to Sara, but being polite had not commented on it until Sara slipped it into the discussion around the picture and photograph discussion. 

Many thanks to Sara for getting this tactile diagram prepared for us and to Stephen for assisting us through the busy galleries.

Postscript:

There are continued possibilities to study this picture in the comfort of one’s home.  A photo has been taken of the tactile diagram of the picture with the reproduction of the Ingres portrait.  I can be noted touching the reflection of the cheek of Madame.

 

 

Reflections on the cheek of Madame Moitessier

 

Veronese: The Rape of Europa : Art through Words - National Gallery, London

29^th September, 2012

After my summer break, I went to the Saturday morning Art Through Words in the National Gallery. These are held at 11.30 and we meet in the Sainsbury Wing at the Information Desk.

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/calendar/art-through-words-29-september-2012

I find it easier now to use the London Underground as the Trafalgar Square exit from Charing Cross has been reopened.  Walking through Trafalgar Square allows traffic free access to both the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. 

Three of the usual attendees were already there and we chatted about other events.   I was soon greeted by Marian whom I had met at a Wallace Collection workshop.  Marian is from the West Midlands and is visually impaired.  Marian also volunteers at the Barber Institute in Birmingham.  (They have a nice collection of Flemish and Dutch Paintings which I am keen to visit.)

Soon afterwards we met our describers for the session, Viyki Turnbull and Clare Coope.  Viyki had described the Corot “Peasants under the Trees at Dawn” (http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/corot-peasants-under-trees-at-dawn.html) and as an artist has a mine of practical tips. 

Viyki started by reading an extract from the poem by Ovid in his Metamorphosis series.  The story of the abduction, seduction or rape of Europa by Jupiter transformed into a calf like bull set the story.  Viyki briefly explained the narrative aspects of the picture.  Europa is seen being laid on the back of a bull, then is shown astride the bull moving towards the sea on the shore of Sidon and finally they are in the sea.  (I did not say this, but Debussy La Mer and the sequence from Shirley Valentine came into mind!)

Viyki then described the painting, starting from the top right hand corner.  The picture can be found on the link below.

The Rape of Europa by Paolo Veronese (about 1570) - http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/paolo-veronese-the-rape-of-europa

We were working in the quiet of a study room with an almost full size reproduction.   The main action is the hoisting of Europa by two of her attendants in what Viyki described as a fireman’s lift.  Europa is then on the back of the bull and her right leg is raised and angled. 

The angles and lines associated with each character with a line of gaze was described.  Aspects of clothing were discussed and how Veronese had painted them.  The bull was described as crouched down and turning his face towards Europa, he started to lick her feet.  Images of Sarah Ferguson and other habits were hinted by some.  I asked if the bull had had his horns gilded. (In the Odyssey Homer describes the scene with Telemachus at the court of Nestor in Pylos with Pisistratus  at a banquet in which slaughter is made of a white, unblemished calf whose horns had been gilded prior to slaughter.)  This Veronese bull was certainly garlanded but we were not sure about the golden horns.  A zoom copy of the central characters was then given to each of us. 

These blow ups allow much more access to some of the detail and I could make out some of the facial expressions of Europa and one of the handmaidens.  In fact, the handmaiden reminded me of one of the nurses lifting a patient with a hip replacement!

Someone asked if Europa was wearing earrings.  The answer was in the negative.  Then the statement was made that this Europa was no allusion to a saint.  I did not know that saints did not wear earrings. 

At this point a large copy of Guido Reni’s painting of the Rape of Europa was passed round.  This appeared to be a bit more saintly as this woman was not wearing earrings. 

The Rape of Europa by Guido Reni (1637-9)- http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/guido-reni-the-rape-of-europa

Next it was time to visit the Veronese painting in the gallery.  In Art through Words we are invited to say our names and say how far we have come.  We had two sighted visitors, Margherita Mazzoni and Dr Gianetta Corley (also known as Barbara), Cathedral Guide at St Paul’s Cathedral, who joined us as we went to view the original painting. 

The copy we had studied gave us a good idea of the original but it always amazes me how much more one thinks one sees when gazing at the real thing.  There are 2 small paintings below the Veronese and the picture labels were read out to me. 

Adjacent to the Veronese was something familiar.  To the left is a very large Titian.  The Diana and Callisto and Diana and Acteon have been moved from the Titian 2012 Metamorphosis exhibition and now face each other. I checked with Clare if this was the case and we discussed the Metamorphosis show.  I had enjoyed the complementary works, some more than others. 

At the end Viyki offered to take us to another point in the gallery or the exit.  Marian had come to London to view the Bronze exhibition so I navigated the way to the RA where I made my second visit.

These Art through Words sessions allow peaceful study of a painting followed by a trip through the gallery.  The social aspect is also important as we visually impaired people are also seen in the gallery. 

The next Art through Words is on 27^th October at 11:30.  More details can be found on:

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/calendar/art-through-words-27-october-2012

Piero di Cosimo : Satyr mourning death of a nymph - Art through Words at the National Gallery

Art Through Words is the National Gallery discussion for visually impaired people and is held on the last Saturday of the month.  I had missed the April talk as I was still in hospital and this was my first visit without a crutch in sight. A friend took me on the bus and we arranged to meet up after the talk and take in the Turner Inspired exhibition which closes next week.

The time before the meeting allows some chat between other visitors about other events. One had been to an event at Tate Britain and another to an early access to the Royal Academy.  We were welcomed by Linda Bolton who was assisting and Caroline Smith who had prepared the discussion.  Linda has written a piece for the blog and this post gets regular hits when searches are made for art and visually impaired subjects.  ( http://profwhitestick.blogspot.com/2012/02/guest-post-behind-sceneseen-at-art.html ) We were about 16 people and though the majority come from Greater London a couple had made the journey from Kettering.

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/calendar/art-through-words-26-may-2012

The subject for the day was a painting on poplar wood by Piero di Cosimo which was made in 1495.  Caroline had prepared a reproduction of the work and the dimensions seemed strange on first viewing; our print is sized 63 cm by 21 cm.    The painting can be found on http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/piero-di-cosimo-a-satyr-mourning-over-a-nymph

Caroline went through the layout and geometry of the painting with key landmarks. A recently killed nymph is lying along the bulk of the bottom half.  She is flanked by a satyr (top half man, lower half goat) on the left and a dog on the right. Both satyr and dog take up most of the height of the painting and in turn they are framed by foliage almost in the manner of a book end. In the remaining top space there is a landscape of a meadow reaching down to an estuary with some blue mountains in the distance.

We discussed the mythology of the painting and how some Roman and Classical myths had been reworked into plays and also into art work for the popular private market (i.e. non-religious or state).  This piece was privately commissioned and would likely have been found in a private room, probably a bedroom from the subject matter  My impression of the dog reminded me of Egyptian tomb paintings where the god Anubis ( a jackal) guards many of the funerary monuments. Virgil’s tale of the Aeneid was continually being reworked and even some families claimed to be descended to Aeneas in much the same way as Julius Caesar had done.  Kings of England and France had sought to proclaim their status and descent in works they commissioned and I was reminded of a Bettany Hughes radio programme about the Medicis and some Florentine art being used in quite a utilitarian way. 

In the gallery the piece is placed above a “Cassone” or marriage chest (The Scots word kist) and this painting could well have been placed in a panel of such an object.   I was telling a friend about such chests and he said it was common to have a painting on the inside of the lid.  Alternatively, the piece could have been  used in part of the bed furniture. (IKEA, flat packs come to mind)

Caroline then produced enlargements of the sections of the painting to allow some with vision to see a bit more and expand the discussion.

The first expanded section showed the upper part of the dead nymph and the satyr is holding her left shoulder with his left hand while his right hand is touching her head.  Her left arm makes a V shape as it is bent at the elbow. The wound on her neck could be made out and the flow of blood has been commented on by surgeons who suggest that, by the blood flow, the subject must have been standing. Some suggestion of a tracheotomy was made and one of us mentioned diphtheria and a cure. I mentioned that one of my uncles had contracted croup as a 2 year old and had silver tubes inserted into his throat to improve breathing.  Piero is said to have known Leonardo and an exhibition of some of the Leonardo drawings on medical subjects is now on show at Buckingham Palace.  Was the nymph really dead and who killed her?  It was established that her clothing was dry and quickly we resembled a Crime Scene Investigation.   The enlargement also allowed more viewing of the plants in the meadow.

The second enlargement featured the landscape from the top segment of the painting.  This section is a beautiful composition in its own right.   Having been interested in Dutch paintings from the 17^th Century, I find this section from the 15^th century to be fascinating.  This shows a beautiful sky and distant mountains behind an estuary with boats and cranes in flight and on ground. More dogs can be found and I thought they were horses at first. These add-on dogs are not as well painted as the main dog guarding the satyr. Caroline explained that the workings of the chief dog had been exposed and that Piero had changed the profile of the head.  The jaw bone structure and facial features had been altered. 

I learned a lot from this talk. Some of the other participants are well versed in Vasari and the popular dramas at the end of the 15^th Century.  On inspection of the painting in the gallery we were able to view a Cassone placed in front and discuss the craftsmanship at the time. 

Again many thanks to Caroline and Linda for bringing some art to us. 

More information about Piero di Cosimo can be found on the National Gallery website on: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/piero-di-cosimo

The June 2012 Art through Words painting is Turner's  Ulysses deriding Polyphemus -

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/calendar/art-through-words-30-june-2012

Hieronymus Bosch: Christ Mocked – The Crowning with Thorns

In the National Gallery ‘Art through Words’ programme the chosen painting for March 31, 2012 was Hieronymus Bosch ‘Christ Mocked’  or ‘Crowning with Thorns’ This has an Easter theme to it and the passion can be read from the Gospel of St Mark. 

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/calendar/art-through-words-31-march-2012

On the day, the National Gallery was preparing for a full security check in line with London preparing for the Olympic Games.  When there are crowds waiting, security manages to escort visually impaired people through the checking process.  It is something we will all have to get used to as the Games get closer. 

Our describer Karly Allan met us on the ground floor and we went upstairs - a lift is available.  There were about 20 of us including companions.  After introductions we settled down to an A2 sized poster reproduction of the painting, almost the size of the original itself.

Bosch was born in the area around Antwerp.  Many of his paintings were done in the late 1400s and this would put him in the same period as say Richard III in England.  After the historical context and background to Netherlandish Art and Northern European Reformation around 1500, Karly settled on the geometry. 

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/hieronymus-bosch-christ-mocked-the-crowning-with-thorns 

Within the frame is a 5 sided figure slightly askew (an inverted pentagon with about 18 degrees of clockwise rotation). At the corners are 4 tormentors or torturers of Christ, who is off-centre on the top side to the right of the centre of the pentagon. With the 5 people there are five pairs of hands and we spent some time locating arms, hands and shoulders!

The off-centre nature of the composition with some diagonal lines gives the painting some sense of motion.  It is slightly unnerving and suggests violence, which is doubtless the intent.   I commented in the Zoffany post that in compositions Zoffany managed to suggest a frozen scene of the action in his paintings of theatrical and classical or biblical scenes.  The Bosch painting has characters who appear to be different in their actions as one moves round the group.  Christ himself appears calm though violence is occurring and a crown of thorns is placed just above the head in a halo like appearance. 

The characters top left and bottom left are clothed in green and raspberry red respectively, the lower one is in profile with a bulbous and hooked nose.  On the top right the character is dressed in what looks like a dog collar with spikes and is brandishing a club which may have had spikes though these have been erased.  This character reminded me of the executioner in Mel Brooks Movie ‘Blazing Saddles’  (Now that I think of it, the bottom left character looks like the Marty Feldmann character in Mel Brooks Young Frankenstein!)

The figure on the bottom right seems to be pulling off the white robe on Christ’s body. It is almost as if he were pulling back a curtain and this gives a diagonal from the bottom right of the painting into the centre.  Other lines which give some idea of movement are discernible on the peripheral vision.  Some of those attending could detect detail such as the crescent and 6 pointed star on the bottom left character clothing.  Clusters of oak leaves and an acorn on the tormentor top right and an arrow which is on the turban on the top left character who also has a metal clad arm and hand. 

This painting would have been commissioned as a private “devotional” item.  It is oil on wood (oak) and has a wooden frame in Gallery Room 5. 

We then moved to the painting in groups. There are arms to borrow for guidance and I chatted with a couple I had met in January.  The surprise is “seeing” the painting in real life.  The colour contrast was much clearer.  I am rather weak on green and the profile of those clad in red was much sharper as was the thinning of the white on Christ. 

At this point it was mentioned that this was the only Bosch in the collection.  The same had been said about Albrecht Durer.  I have seen Bosch paintings in real life at the Prado in Madrid.  As coincidence would have it, the friend who had taken me to the Zoffany exhibition had been with his wife to Madrid and had sent me a postcard of the Garden of Delights which I showed to Karly.  

Many thanks to the National Gallery team for these monthly meetings.  They give us another door to explore more art by just asking.

For Chemists: The structure of this painting can be described as Furan, with the oxygen placed at the bottom of the heterocyclic ring.   The carbons represent the heads of the torturers.  The Carbon-Hydrogen bonds represent the arms of the torturers. The white pigment has become abraded and shows the workings of the body of Christ.  The green pigment is made from an unusual compound of tin, oxygen and the isotope of hydrogen with 2 neutrons.

Postscript

After the talk I was taken back to the Sainsbury Wing where I made some enquiries about the Turner Exhibition.  Security took me outside as the heightened security exercise was underway. I was enjoying a banana outside the gallery when the peace and tranquillity of Trafalgar Square was ruined by someone playing the bagpipes, badly.  I enjoy bagpipe music but this was not only a bad player but the tune was Highland Cathedral.  I can only think that this was the latest Cabinet Office stunt to control the British Masses.

Further dates were handed out at the meeting and when I got home Miranda Baxter sent me the programme which my computer can read to me and which I can cut and paste into the blog.  The National Gallery needs an idea of numbers in order to have reproduction posters and highlights magnified for those attending.  All sessions are free.  Please call 020 7747 5820 to guarantee a place.

Corot: Peasants under the Trees at Dawn National Gallery Art through Words

Corot’s landscape ‘Peasants under the Trees at Dawn’ was the February painting to be discussed at the Saturday morning Art through Words event and which was attended by about 20 people.  Viyki Turnbull was our describer with Caroline Smith guiding us to the painting in the gallery.  There are usually 2 or 3 people to advise on various topics in the art world and, as I commented on the guest post by Linda Bolton of the National Gallery, directions are given to “point” in the next direction.  This is something which seems to be built into the DNA of the National Gallery. 

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/calendar/art-through-words-25-february-2012

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/jean-baptiste-camille-corot-peasants-under-the-trees-at-dawn

If you are on your own, the staff are very helpful. I am beginning to recognise some of the regulars at this event and the minutes spent at the Sainsbury Wing waiting area is a good chance to exchange information on many activities for the visually impaired including practical transport tips.  A couple from Wolverhampton were there again as was the usual North London contingent including me.  We even had a few from South of the River Thames, though no one admitted to coming from Croydon.

Corot painted this landscape between 1840 and 1845.  The setting is near Lormes in the Morvan district to the west of Dijon in France and the landscape illustrates a rather poor agricultural area with an almost limestone dry soil and trees with very gnarled trunks and roots. I am familiar with some of the countryside around Dijon and Beaune having enjoyed the company of Meursault and Volnay among others.  The peasants seem to be coppicing wood and Viyki mentioned that Corot used to buy charcoal in the area. 

The timing of the painting was before the revolutionary period of 1848 which struck many parts of mainland Europe.  (One of the visitors mentioned that many French painters and even authors had gone into exile in Italy during times of political upheaval and turmoil in France and that artists such as Claude Lorrain were at their most prolific in exile.) 

I had taken my guide to the Hockney ‘A Bigger Picture’ on show at the Royal Academy.  Given that the Hockney landscapes are huge, these paintings by Corot are quite small.  The Peasants under the Trees at Dawn is about A3 in real life so the copy we had was life size.  Another comment was made about government or state approval in France for large paintings being required or commissioned so that many artists had to sell into the growing middle class market. 

One could even describe this market as Pret a Porter. Corot had a reasonable income from his parents.  His father was a wig maker and his mother a milliner.  The family went into the hat trade.  In this background Corot had financial security and did not have to live on the bread line. Corot was prolific with 3000 works.  Coincidentally the Metropolitan Opera was broadcasting Ernani by Verdi which was premiered in 1844 and was based on a play by Victor Hugo, himself no stranger to political exile. 

Having introduced the painting Viyki set the main points of the painting before working on the geometry.  Many of us have very poor vision with limited shape and colour definition.  The geometry helps us to understand where an object is and how it (and its shadow) are drawn.  The painting is set at dawn and Viyki explained ‘raking light’ and ‘contr-jour’  The rising sun casts very long shadows and this has strange effects on the painting.  For example there is a large dark area in the painting which is the shadow of a goose which is almost a fraction of the shadow and is itself quite light and bright.  Other objects which seemed to be illuminated by the sun were a horse and some boulders.  We were not sure about the horse.  Was it a mane or a tail that was bright and how was the horse drinking from the trough. 

Some of us could not see the horse and I agreed with one other who had in fact thought that the boulders were sheep.  The peasant couple stand by a tree which is an inverted triangle covering a large area above the horizon and a smaller reflected triangle showing a root system.  There are buildings which appear in subdued mauve colours and have the odd spot of direct light, often in a stunning lead white or even a golden colour which could be a thatched roof someone thought.   The couple is shown with the woman standing on the right of the off centre tree.  The man is sitting.  There is a red piece of colour on the woman’s hat and someone commented that Constable used this technique.

Viyki described the colours and they are mainly green for the land and foliage and a chrome green was popular.  Dark greens are not my strong point and as the greenery was described Viyki dropped a bombshell: Corot painted in the sky after he had drawn and painted in the trees with foliage.  The sky is a mix of cobalt blue and lead white.  We wondered about the practicalities of painting the sky around the greenery when to us it would have been easier to paint the sky and then put the trees on top.    We still had a mystery to solve.  There is a rather smart woman lurking at dawn and what was she up to?  Viyki explained this woman as a bit of “staffage”.  

At this time it was the moment to go and view the painting which is in a room about as far as it is possible to go in the National Gallery.  This is the moment which, for me is the best part.  We stroll in groups and those on their own can tag on or borrow an arm or stay within sound by talking.  I strolled with Viyki and by the time we got to the gallery, Caroline was standing in the group and one of the visitors was discussing glaciation and its effect on the landscape especially in the shape of valleys and boulders or erratics. 

As I write this up, with no notes or recording, Ernani is finishing and BBCRadio4 is doing an Archive Hour on ‘Ways of Seeing’ by John Berger in 1972.  The National Gallery are keen to ask what we see and at no time is there an “imposed” interpretation.  With contemporary art there has to be some impression of how the background of the artist and specific context can influence what is seen.  I have learned from the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery that many of those attending the talks have a hinterland which they can share. 

There are a few scientists who go to the art talks.  Over the talk we had discussed Louis Philippe, patronage of the arts, agriculture pigments and art in Europe.  We were quite a large group in a small room with a few other Corots on show.  I had first come across Corot in Paris in 1975 when the Orangerie of the Tuileries by the Louvre had a major exhibition of landscapes on show.  I had been delighted by these paintings and this was at a time when one raced through a major art gallery in an hour.  That exhibition of Corot has remained with me and though I can’t make much of the print I can still envisage the landscape as some of the detail is imprinted in my mind.  The names of the colours and pigments tune in with my background and I mentioned to Viyki that I had bought a small painting directly from an artist on the strength of the answer to the question “What colour would you call that? The answer came back Alizarin”.  I bought it on hearing the name of an organic pigment which is often known as red madder.  (The Arts sector has absorbed quite a lot of chemical techniques and even embraced spectrometry in checking dates, authenticity and preservation.)

In the guest blogpost of Linda Bolton, Linda mentioned the poster which we take away from Art through Words  as a souvenir or a relic from a pilgrimage.  Thus when I got some postcards in the shop the assistant who helped me find the Corot postcards suggested that as my hands were full with crutch and cane I could do with a smart NG paper carrier bag with string handles to loop round the crutch grip.  That is observation, kindness and attention. (Physiotherapists take note!)

Thanks as always to the National Gallery.

PS The Roman Campagna, with the Claudian Aqueduct by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1796-1975
Landscape at Arleux-du-Nord, 1871-4 by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1796-1975

An exhbition has just opened at the National Gallery titled "Turner Inspired in the light of Claude" and runs from 14 March to 5 June.  More information is available at: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/turner-inspired

GUEST POST : Behind the scene/seen at Art through Words at the National Gallery

GUEST POST by Linda Bolton, one of the team of National Gallery Art through Words

Linda Bolton has kindly agreed to write this guest post on her experience of working on the National Gallery’s Art through Words programme. 

I met Linda at one of the Art through Words events.  This series offers the visually impaired an opportunity to share in and discuss some art appreciation, history of art, social history and even the occasional piece of science with both strangers and friends alike.  For me the thrill is always the stroll through the gallery and “meeting” the painting in question.  I asked Linda to take a “view” of the audio describer and “guide” through the gallery and (though Linda doesn’t mention this specifically) even to make sure we get to our next destination.  At these meetings there is also always the opportunity to discuss what other events or exhibitions are on in the Arts Scene.

Art through Words

Talking about Paintings in the National gallery to the Blind. How was that going to work?

The National Gallery was planning to offer talks on paintings to the blind and partially sighted. Really? We're all about looking at the National Gallery. We've got two and a half thousand paintings, and people like me spend my days talking about them to people who are looking at them. How and what were we going to do with visitors who were unable to see?

To find out how, I signed up for the introductory session in talking to the blind and visually impaired. Here a woman from RIBA raised our consciousness.   The details of the introductory session have now merged into a memory of fascinating information. It began with basics such as what different white canes might signify, and was followed by helping us experience different kinds of impaired sight.

Here I learned about tunnel vision, spotted vision, other kinds of conditioned vision. We donned various spectacles which approximated a variety of visual impairments. We learnt about braille - how it required two elements that not everyone possessed - intelligence and dexterity - so no good for a fat-fingered professor or for a dainty-fingered dimwit.

We worked in pairs, each taking turns to close our eyes and be led around the gallery by a colleague who had to warn us of stairs, corners or doors. But you know all that.

We learnt much that session. It was of sufficient interest for me to discuss with a variety of people. It was philosophically engaging to think about approximation of the sense of sight in those blind from birth. But not everyone who was to attend the session would be that. We were going to meet a variety of people with varying degrees of impaired vision, many accompanied by their sighted partners.

The last Saturday of the month was to be Art through Words where in the quiet of the National Gallery's Conference Room one of the National Gallery lecturers was to talk on a single painting for an hour or so. Magnified details of certain areas could be ordered to provide close up views for those with impaired vision. The sessions were intensely interesting, especially in considering how the painting might be interpreted by someone who had been blind from birth.

At the extreme end of blindness and partial sight were those who had never been able to see. We all have some experience of sightlessness by simply closing our eyes. And most of us do some things sightlessly in the dark of a house we know. Most of us don't put on the light when we go to the bathroom at night, and can attach a phone to charge by touch alone. But blindness from birth is a hard one for the sighted to imagine. While it wasn't hard to understand how a person blind from birth might understand blossom or flowers, how would they understand colour? height of trees? pink cheeks? It was a philosophical curiosity to think on how sight might find its approximation.

In the last part of the session we would go to 'look' at the painting we'd spent the best part of an hour talking about. A curious group we made, walking through the gallery to view a painting. And what does that mean? To view a painting?  What were we doing?

What we are doing 'looking' at paintings is best summed up by the artist Grayson Perry. The most interesting and enjoyable exhibition in London is for me Grayson Perry's Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman at the British Museum, and is centred on the theme of pilgrimage. He is a former Turner-Prize winner, and sold relics of his work in the Tate Modern shop where I bought one. These are his words found inside his relic box:

"I think that the way we look at art comes from religion. We go to special buildings to stare at significant and precious things. We feel it is good for us. Tate Modern is a 21st century cathedral. Artists are saints and holy fools. Here is a relic of one of them to take home from your pilgrimage."

This is what Art through Words does on the last Saturday of the month. The poster of the painting discussed is the take-home relic.

Camille Pissarro: Paris at Night - tactile representation of Impressionist art

The National Gallery’s Art through Words series opened 2012 with a painting by the Impressionist Camille Pissarro of  a Parisian street scene at night and during the rain. 

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/camille-pissarro-the-boulevard-montmartre-at-night 

An Impressionist painting in the dark sounds a tall order for people of the visually impaired community, but the National Gallery team met the challenge.  There were around a dozen visually impaired people and with companions that made over 20 people altogether.  The speakers/describers were Sara and Linda. 

Sara introduced Pissarro with dates and background.  Pissarro was active politically and would also rent a room at the Hotel Rusie in Paris and do a series of paintings of street scenes, of which this was one. The painting is of a convenient domestic size being 22 inch by 26 and is in oil.  You can read about Pissarro at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Pissarro .

Sara had made a sketch of the painting which, with software and special paper, had been transformed into an A3 sized tactile drawing of the painting, with black and white contrast.  I found it difficult to disassociate a map from a painting at first. Sara then went through perspective lines. I was still having difficulty in getting the lines from my fingers to imprint the lines of the buildings and the lines of cabs in a busy street scene.  Eventually the penny dropped.  At this point we were given an A3 reproduction of the painting. 

The painting is very dark (it is Paris at night after all!) and reminded me of those postcards one could buy all over the world titled “x at Night”.  The lines of the building could be made out and there was a reference point in the form of a street lamp.  Electric lighting had been introduced in Paris but was still relatively new  when this painting was made. Pissarro was an Impressionist so the figures for people and other forms are suggested rather than drawn.  In my mind I still had the idea of a drawing and a plan rather than a painting. This may explain the questions I was asking about the height of the buildings and on which floor of the hotel Pissarro had painted the view. 

Pissarro has a lamp post with the light shining in a ‘figure foreground relation’,  which was painted giving the impression of a lit lamp and as part of a row of lamps.  These lamps give another perspective line.  In Sara’s tactile drawing, the lamp post is a key to the navigation of the painting itself, as is the intersection of the diagonal perspective lines based on a line of carriages on the bottom right hand diagonal, which continues through the vanishing point to the skyline on the top left.  The other diagonal line going from bottom left to top right is mainly an awning line going through the vanishing point to the skyline to the right. 

I find it easier to prop the tactile drawing on a wall and ‘read’ it with my fingers as one would read a tube map, for example, on the underground by following a specified underground line to give an indication of the route. 

One of the participants, with limited vision, thought that the tactile drawing had encouraged her to give the actual painting a second chance whereas the reproduction was too dark to discern much.  Another thought the perspective lines helped her to ‘frame’ the picture.  I was still a little confused and switched from ‘looking’ down on the painting to looking at the painting held vertically in my hand.  While I am quite happy painting with the canvas flat on a table I still ‘look’ at a painting as I would a book that is at an angle or in a vertical plane. So it was with the tactile drawing, which I now held in my left hand and touched the lines and features in my right.

We discussed the painting and the background of Paris which had been remodelled with the Hausmann designs and the wide boulevards which replaced the narrower streets. Topics such as the Paris Commune, cars and Hansom cabs, Franco Prussian War, Pissarro and conscription, the Dreyfuss Affair and the coming of electric lighting to both Paris and London were also raised.

The treat of these moments is when we move on through the National Gallery to the painting itself.  It looked a lot brighter than the reproduction suggested and the perspective lines were quite clear in my mind. Although we had been given close ups of the painting, no figures could be discerned apart from blobs of paint, which is what it is.  In passing this painting I would have recognised it and as Sara said it would look good above a mantelpiece.

Many thanks to Sara and Linda at the National Gallery for a lot of research and being able to answer all the questions which arose during the discussion. 

Postscript

On returning from the National Gallery I was invited to “watch” a TV programme about painting and the night.  This would have been just as good as the radio as all the subjects were either done in the dark or were about the “dark” The presenter Waldemar Januszczak was interesting though the subjects were tangential in that the subject continually changed and tended to religiosity. Nevertheless it was informative about candle light, gas light and even starlight.  I learned about the coming of gas and gas lighting in Arles and Van Gogh painting ‘Night Café. There were also some weird photographs about steam locomotives so I was entirely transfixed about that subject.  Not having a television I appreciated this programme though it added little to my knowledge on Paris by Night. The programme ended with the Rolling Stones ‘Paint it Black’ and this seems a suitable point to close.

Also, the Guardian published an article on a pavement artist who draws.  I find this aspect of street art fascinating and made a comment in the section in the Guardian.  This is the link to the paper's discussion with comments on perspective and perspective lines in drawing and painting: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/feb/01/3d-street-art  It fits in rather nicely with street scenes and my comments seemed to have been appreciated by late night Guardian bloggers.

Stamp collecting connects a Hoare with a Durer

The working title for this blog post was ‘A Hoare with a Durer’, but on reflection I thought it best to edit it …

I heard an interview with Sir John Sulston on Radio4 and he mentioned the pleasure he got in stamp collecting.  I had already introduced philately into the draft of the Durer painting but I realised that I had collected stamps from Senegal, Gambia, Togo and Dahomey (Benin) and in fact had visited these countries in the 1980s and 1990s.   

I went to my first National Portrait Gallery talk for the visually impaired. (They are normally at 2pm on the last Thursday of the month.)  On account of a mix up on times I was there too early and on discussion with the staff decided to wander around the Tudor and Elizabethan section of the galleries.  Many of the pictures of Henry VIII and Elizabeth were familiar as was Archbishop Cranmer.  I had to ask who someone was and it happened to be Sir Francis Drake.  I then had a fascinating discussion with two other visitors who were passing the time waiting for their timed ticket entry to the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition next door at the National Gallery.  

The group of around 8 people gathered in Room 11 with chairs clustered in front of a portrait of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo painted by William Hoare of Bath in 1733.  (http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp122558/ayuba-suleiman-diallo-job-ben-solomon?search=sas&sText=ayuba) We were given an A3 reproduction of the painting which is the centre piece of a group of portraits of Methodist movers and shakers of the time such as Whitefield and Selina, Countess of Hastings.  The painting has been purchased by a museum in Qatar and will be on show in the NPG until 2015. 

The painting is a ‘challenging’ one in several ways.  Diallo was a slave trader from the modern day Senegal and Gambia area, and had wandered across the Gambia River into a different tribal area where he was captured. Face and beard shaved, he was shipped to Maryland in the American Colonies.  While a slave he was noted for his appearance and demeanour and with some bad luck was shipped to England where he was bonded until released for £59. 

Diallo is said to be the first African ‘Moslem’ to be painted in England and the NPG wanted to keep the picture.  There is a lot of context to this painting and much of the records of Diallo exist in contemporary notes.  He is described as an Islamic priest and he did not drink alcohol or eat pork.  He is said to have been reluctant to have his portrait done for fear of it being idolatrous.  On the other hand he wanted to be painted wearing clothes appropriate to his status in Africa.  He is portrayed wearing a white turban with a red cap on top.  I could make out the turban though the cap eluded me.  I queried the robes said to be of silk as the Quran forbids men to wear silk - or gold for that matter.  Much was made of Diallo’s scholarship in Arabic and he is shown wearing a Quran suspended round his neck. 

Marion, our guide for the painting, was armed with the record of the time and we were able to discuss aspects of slavery, enlightenment, abolition and the portrayal of the “African” of the times.  With a small group and the real painting in view, it is possible to do repeated iterations between the reproduction and the portrait.  Marion was able to indicate triangles of the body and the rectangles of the neck and other features of portraiture. 

Was Diallo idealised as a noble foreigner?  It is delightful that one can have discussions such as these in a gallery space. Dallio was a slave trader who was captured and crossed the Atlantic before returning home.  A lot of moral relativism and an interesting subject matter.  Get there before it goes to Qatar. 

Thanks to the National Portrait Gallery, Marion and Lucy for the William Hoare painting description.  A list of upcoming talks can be found on:

http://www.npg.org.uk/[~base_url~]whatson/events-calendar.php?filterDate=&eventSearch=Enter+keyword...&eventType=&eventKeyword=Picture+descriptions&eventsSubmit.x=13&eventsSubmit.y=3

The monthly Art through Words at the National Gallery was Vigin and Child painted by Albrecht Durer in 1500.  (http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/workshop-of-albrecht-durer-the-virgin-and-child-the-madonna-with-the-iris)

Durer first came across my radar as a schoolchild interested in stamps. Two of my cousins and my uncles were interested in stamp collecting, and at the time a lot of geography and history could be assimilated through philately.  Ordinary stamps can reveal more about a country than many think.  I remember German (Deutsche Bundespost) definitives portraying Durer and Goethe.  As an 8 year old I hadn’t a clue who they were and my father got me an encyclopaedia and I was told to “look it up”!

As a student in Munich I had access to the Alte Pinakothek and on a trip to the Zwinger in Dresden was told that Durer was unrepresented in London’s National Gallery.  So it was a treat to have the Durer painting ‘Virgin and Child’ in the description series.  There is only one other Albrecht Durer painting in the National Gallery.  It is displayed in a show case near the Virgin and Child and is of St Jerome.

Not much is known about the Durer ‘Virgin and Child’ and the painting could be said to have “form” in many senses of the word.  What struck me was not the red rose robed Virgin, but the shape described by an arch.  While many of those attending the talk were versed in Marian iconography, I could not help being attracted to what looked like a large scallop shell (shades of St James and Santiago).  Eventually the red/orange robed figure and the green background could be discerned.  There was much discussion about the Madonna being clothed in anything other than blue.  Someone said that perhaps the Durer studio had run out of blue (lapis lazuli).

Our guide for the talk was Steven assisted by Jos.  The geometry of the painting was described and we had two enlargements of some details.  The details show trellis work and irises and these lines provide a frame for the figure.  There is also an enlargement of the hair and veil of Mary and a signature showing AD mysteriously on top of the varnish. 

The painting had been authenticated by Lord Clark (father of Alan Clark and Civilisation) It was sold to the National Gallery in 1945 and some doubts as to its provenance arose and whether it was a Durer workshop production.  (http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/the-madonna-with-the-iris)  One of the group commented that it was a beautiful painting workshop or not.  Modern science came to the rescue with the use of X-Ray and Infra Red techniques. 

The handwriting of Durer as far as the drawing of the painting is concerned could be discerned by looking under the surface.  A lot of the detail of the painting, including the butterfly, moth, vines, lily of the valley and peonies, was noted and some were able to identify the likely symbology of the period.  The painting could be part of an altar piece and Durer was possibly influenced by an artist based in Colmar on the French border. 

The high point of the visit is the actual viewing of the painting itself.  With such clear detail in our minds it is possible to stand in front of a work of art and appreciate it for what one can see.  The image of the large scallop shell did not leave me, even when in front of the painting.  It seemed that Shell Oil had stuck their logo in the top left hand corner!  The next time you partake of Coquille St Jacques think of me staring at the Albrecht Durer painting.

Many thanks to the National Gallery, Steven and Jos.