Author's posts
Dec 20
Visit a portrait gallery
For this exercise I went to the National Portrait Gallery in London. I think that this may have been the first time I had visited the NPG as previously if I had visited a gallery it would probably have been to the National Gallery next door. I was pleased that I made the trip. It …
Dec 20
Annotate a portrait
I went to Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery to look for a suitable painting which I could annotate for this exercise. I came across this work by Peter Tillemans, an artist I had not heard of before, so in just doing this exercise I have already broadened my artistic knowledge and added to the …
Dec 20
Research Point: Portrait Sculpture
I used a couple of examples of portrait sculpture for this exercise; the sculpture of Sir Thomas Browne in Norwich City Centre and of Sir John Betjeman at St Pancras Station, London. I visited both sites to study the sculptures and learnt quite a lot from it. Prior to this course if I looked at …
Dec 19
Exercise: Looking at cartoons
This was quite an interesting exercise that took me in a direction I hadn’t anticipated at the beginning – starting with Steve Bell and ending with Roy Lichtenstein. I began by assembling the cartoons outlined in the course guide, including several by Steve Bell, and started the exercise. As I was in London one day …
Oct 14
Exercise: make a copy of a painting
The final part of this module of the course is to make a copy of a painting. I chose to copy a still life of flowers by Christopher Wood. The original painting can be seen at http://www.kettlesyard.cam.ac.uk/collection/work.php?work=245 Having not lifted a paintbrush since I left school more than 40 years ago (and not being particularly …
Oct 14
Annotation: Cubist Still Life
My final annotation for this part of the course is by Pablo Picasso, Violin and Grapes. In the past I had always been a bit confused with cubist paintings. Now, having read more about the movement, I am starting to appreciate what people like Braque and Picasso were trying to achieve. It is interesting to …
Oct 14
Annotate a still life painting by Cezanne or Van Gogh
I chose to annotate a still life by Paul Cezanne for this exercise. Here is a copy of the annotation, with the photos removed for copyright purposes Still Life with Fruit Basket by Paul Cezanne – No Photo I have always liked Cezanne’s paintings, but until starting this course I haven’t really studied them in …
Oct 14
Research point: Van Gogh’s Letters
This was an interesting exercise. I had heard that Van Gogh was a regular correspondent with his brother, but the sheer volume of correspondence took me by surprise, well over 900 so far as I could see. I found the following site the best repository of the letters http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters.html Reading through the letters gives a …
Oct 14
Annotation: a still life image
For this exercise I chose to annotate an image by Willem Kalf. I’m really pleased that I chose to do this for two reasons I had not heard of Kalf before so it was good to learn more about his work. I looked a several of his paintings before I chose this one to annotate. …
Oct 14
Research point: Iconography of still life paintings
These are a few of the symbols that have been included in still life paintings, they have been taken from Hall, J. (2008) Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art (Revised 2nd edition) Colorado: Westview Press Bird – Symbol of the soul in ancient Egypt, features in this sense in still life Hour glass, Clock …