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

Royal Academy In Touch: David Hockney Tour of ‘A Bigger Picture’ and Workshop

This post covers my second visit to the Royal Academy current exhibition of David Hockney ‘A Bigger Picture’ and the work shop which followed.  (http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/hockney/)%20Onthis occasion the RA arranged for an early viewing of the collection in the company of our describer Bridget.  (My first visit to the exhibition is described in http://profwhitestick.blogspot.com/2012/02/david-hockney-bigger-picture.html )On

We gathered in the foyer and were taken to the Reynolds room and fortified with coffee (it was a 9AM start) we entered the galleries.  I had arranged for my friend Stephen who took me to the Gerhard Richter exhibition, to accompany me and take some notes.   Apart from some maintenance crew and staff setting up for the public opening, our group of about 25 people, had the Academy to ourselves. 

We spent some time on the Thixendale series in the four seasons showing three trees.  While the same trees are painted Hockney has shifted his standing area and subtle changes occur in the perspective lines which he drew.  The seasons have also altered the appearance of the foliage on the trees, the flowers in the fields, farming changes to the landscape as well as weather conditions.  When I viewed these paintings on a Friday evening I noted that the winter and autumn (fall) scenes worked best for me.  A second viewing and a Monday morning shifted my opinion considerably.  I found myself liking the paintings of summer and spring.  This had something to do with the lighting, it was daylight lit for a start. 

There was space to view the painting from afar, without other visitors getting in the way.  It was also much quieter and so we only could hear Bridget’s opinion.  Bridget had explained her role in giving a description of some art work.  It is difficult in describing some concepts as being totally objective.  Bridget had a novel way, to me, of explaining the dimensions of a very large painting; to walk from one end of the painting so that those with no sight could hear the voice shift and were thus able to triangulate the size in their minds.  Bridget explained the flora in all the paintings and the seasonal coming of cow parsley was noted.  I had not been able to notice the state of the ploughed and planted fields and the perspective lines in the summer and spring paintings were different in the autumn painting. 

Salts Mill (Catalogue no. 19)

Johnathon Silver , a friend of Hockney, had bought the old mill in Saltaire near Bradford for conversion to a gallery space for Hockney.  (see http://www.saltsmill.org.uk/gallery.htm ) This painting very much resembles a stylised setting of a Northern Town in England.  There are some very strange effects on the eyes as we had noted on the first viewing.  (The Escher Effect) There is apparently a red diesel train in front of the mill with an impossible route to join the tracks in the bottom left hand corner.  There is also a canal (with canal boat my accompanying friend, Stephen,  whispered)  

There are rows of mill workers’ cottages on the right side and the mill building glows with the reflected sunlight. This is not  the bleak ‘dark satanic mills’ of Blake with Dvorak 9^th Symphony in the background.  Having admired Hockney’s American paintings it was good to stroll past them again en route to Salt’s Mill.

Hawthorn Blossom (Catalogue no. 81)

Caterpillars and snails were not far of the mark.  Bridget described the hawthorn blossom as having a maggot like appearance with thick applied coats and blobs of paint.  The “snail” was in fact the shadow of a tree which in turn was described by another as a rabbit.  Someone else named the snail as Brian and we all thought of the Magic Roundabout and there was something in that (Dvorak 9^th morphed into signature tune of The Magic Roundabout).  Bridget also described the sky as being Van Gogh like.  Stephen thought the painting was an “exercise in flat pattern.”

On moving along the galleries the ‘Kitchener Hand’ (Winter Timber, Catalogue no. 105) beckoned and I noted that this time it did not dominate the view.  Perhaps its height above the “people” line on the Friday evening gave it a dominant position which was absent on the Monday morning.  It may also have had something to do with the lighting.  I stopped with other visually impaired visitors and they could detect the pointing (many fingered) hand. In the next room is

Woldgate 2011 (Catalogue no. 71)

Bridget again walked this painting. (The day before I had found a tapestry Map of Truths and Beliefs’ by Grayson Perry , British Museum, to be too big and I did get lost in it)  Bridget could only walk the painting in an empty gallery.  This painting has many skeletal trees giving vertical and leaves apparently floating.  It could almost appear to be a theatre back drop with a veil of leaves attached to gauze as if for a start of some opera or ballet scene.  Stephen thought this was “another exercise in flat pattern save for the graphic perspective of the path.”

We moved through the rooms devoted to the Sermon on the Mount interpretations of Hockney. 

Workshop

We returned to the Reynolds and were given a handling talk about paints, pigments., brushes and rollers used by Hockney.  Harry Baxter led the session opening with an iPad demonstration of a Brushes app.  It had been reset before it came to my turn to use the touchscreen.  Given my track record at Westfield the system crashed! 

Harry was on safer ground passing round brushes made of hogs hair bristle.  Colours and pigments were discussed and Harry passed round tubes of different colours.  The heaviness of the Cadmium Yellow was noticeable.  Harry discussed different whites and we were told that stocks of Lead White were limited.  The quality of a Lead White was compared with those of titanium dioxide and zinc oxide.  The full list of colours which Harry placed on the palette are as follows:

Lead White

Cadmium Lemon

Cadmium Golden Yellow

Cadmium Orange

Magenta

Bright Violet

Ultramarine Violet

Ultramarine Blue

Cobalt Blue

Viridian Green

Phthalo Green

Emerald Green

Green Lake

Next, Harry passed round two canvasses which he had painted and we could feel the different texture of the lines and blobs of paint and discussed the way that Hockney had assembled 36 panels in a huge hangar and worked on the painting in one piece.  (I did discuss whether it would have been easier to get a bigger panel in the first place and then cut it up with my neighbour, but we didn’t say this too loudly.)  If three paintings together is a triptych, what is 36?

We discussed canvas materials.  I had treated myself to some small linen canvases in a sale and was going to try them out.  I discussed mixing of paints telling my story at the Wallace where I had mixed my own green.  Harry then passed round a palette with a range of colours including several greens.  Artists prefer to use oil paints of a particular green as some simple blue and yellow mixes are grainy.  Disposable palette covers served as keeping a record of the colours used. I could not detect any distinction with some violets, blues and dark greens.  It could have been a change of lighting. 

Harry also passed round a sample of damar varnish by Robertsons.  Damar is a resin and has a smell which is not unpleasant.  He then passed round some crystals of the damar resin which has the feel of frankincense and it is sourced from India.  It was first used by Titian who had access to it as a result of the Venetian trade with Asia.  Next, a sample of turpentine was passed round.  This was certainly not sweet smelling.

It was now our turn to make a collage using varying papers, texturised coatings and colours to make a collage.  With Thixendale fresh in mind I tried to cut out shapes in order to give an impression of Autumn in Thixendale.  My other project was lead by David who I had met at Tate Modern.  We had an empty beer bottle, some clay, wooden base and that’s it.  Some in an earlier session had stuck their beer bottle in a horizontal position and having agreed with David that it may rolloff I arranged to have my bottle stuck upright in a top right space. I put some clay on the sides of the bottle and some in the mouth.  I pretended that it was a Mexican Beer Bottle (Dos Equis) and that I was driving in a right handed car in Arizona. 

The team of describers with Bridget gave in turn their description of the collages and bottle/clay combo.  Harry then gave a critique.  We applauded each other and felt it had been a wonderful morning.  We had been busy from 9AM to almost 1.30PM.

Many thanks to Kate, her team and the Royal Academy.

http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/hockney/events-and-resources/

http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/learning/access-and-communities/access-programme-of-events,1391,AR.html

email: access@royalacademy.org.uk

Footnote

I asked for suitable titles for my collage and the sculpture.  It may have been a mistake to tweet out that the “works” had been created by me in the same room in which Charles Darwin presented his “Origin of the Species” lecture to the Linnaean Society in 1858.  The first tweet yielded mixed results and the 2^nd round got a bit more serious with Dawkins cropping up as well.  Any suggestions for my collage shown at the top are welcome.  This painting (this work of art) currently hangs in my flat!



Royal Academy related posts:

My post on the RA Summer Exhibition 2012 can be found on:
http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/royal-academy-summer-exhibition-2012.html

My post on the Zoffany exhibition at the RA can be found on: http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/royal-academy-johan-zoffany-ra.html