National Gallery - Great Britain 1750 - 1850

Location: National Gallery, London

The National Gallery is by its own an imposing building, situated at the North end of Trafalgar square, and instead of blending in the background, stands out proudly as a great example of Neo-Classical architecture.
Inside is no less impressive, but also very confusing. It would take more than one visit to get a good idea of the layout, consisting of lots of rooms of a wide variety of sizes from large halls to small side-rooms. This overview is not a general one, but rather focused on a single room in this instance.

Continuing with the Romanticism theme from the last gallery (Tate Britain exhibition), this room contained paintings by a number of Romantic artists, including the previous two famous artists: J.M.W. Turner, and John Constable.

The room itself is nicely decorated, with blue patterned walls extending upwards to gold-coloured coving, above which are small arched alcoves bordered in maroon and gold, and finally to a large rectangular ceiling filled with lots of square panes of etched glass. The image below was taken from the virtual tour of the National Gallery:

To begin with, in no particular order than by artist, John Constable's paintings covered more or less a third of the display, with the most preferred pieces being Salisbury Cathedral from the meadows, The Cenotaph to the memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and lastly, Hay Wain. The former two are both dark pieces but beautiful views:

Continuing onward, Thomas Gainsborough had an extensive collection here too, with Cornard wood, near Sudbury, Suffolk and Mrs Siddons, a very famous actress of the time.

Moving on, other interesting pieces worth looking over are Henry Raeburn's The Archers, Pompeo Giolamo Batoni's Humphrey Morice, and William Hogarth's The Graham children, which in the description noted that the youngest had died before the painting was completed. Though amongst these stands out two amazingly detailed pieces, one being a life-size painting of WhistleJacket, a race horse, by George Stubbs.

The next was An Experiment on a bird in an Air Pump, by Joseph Wright of Derby. This piece is particularly noticed by visitors to the room as it shows exceptional detail in the paintwork, and the realism in the faces of the girls standing by the table. Even the use of candlelight for the central piece creates an appealing contrast between the illuminated experiment set-pieces, and the dark surrounds.

Lastly then, J.M.W. Turner also makes an appearance as well, with almost as many fine pieces as Constable, though they are all of a maritime nature. There are a few worth noting here, from the dramatic scenes of Dutch boats in a gale and Calais Pier, to the much calmer and brighter pieces, Ulysses deriding Polyphemus and The Fighting Temaire.

Conclusion, this is a small part of the immense National Gallery, and as with all posts of this blog, serve as a small introduction to what is available.
Images have been yanked from the National Gallery website.

Romantics exhibition, Tate Britain

Location: Tate Britain Gallery, London

So for an entrance, this has begun with motivation provided by a much needed dose of art.

The Tate Britain, situated along the riverfront of the Thames south from the Houses of Parliament, has on this visit a free exhibition, the Romantics. The Romantics is a collection of paintings and sketches by artists such as J.M.W. Turner, John Constable, and Henry Wallis, to name a few. The bulk of the exhibition are landscape and scene paintings, capturing dramatic views of the world.
One of the first major paintings near the entrance that captures the attention is John Crome's Slate Quarries, which despite the title subject inspires a degree of awe from the mountains in the background, captured beautifully in sombre colours, with clouds noticed to glide over their slopes.

Facing it, an eye-catching scene of the Battle of Trafalgar by Turner. Turner is by far the most dominant featured artist of the exhibition, with a variety of paintings by the artist, capturing landscapes, sea battles, classical scenes, all highlighting his life in the Navy as complementing that of his as a painter.
However deviating from the Navy and landscapes, are his classical scenes, the use of strong bright colour in Regulus, and the warm summer hues of The Bay of Baiae, with Apollo and the Sibyl.
However there is a wide range of other notable works by artists, such as The Reconciliation of Helen and Paris after his Defeat by Menelaus by Richard Westall, a carefully rendered scene with soft velvet features for the main characters.

Lastly, the second most featured artist, John Constable, also caught my eye in a few of his works, almost all of which were landscapes. Though seemingly not as creative or varied as Turner, he had some works that are really worth taking in, one very good example of this is Sketch for 'Hadleigh Castle'.

To conclude, a really good exhibition, and worth the visit if one has not. Though the Tate Britain boasts far more works on display, and other exhibitions, this one should be seriously considered, not least as it is free entry. Much and more would have been said of this if the author had a notepad to scribble down some notes.

Images yanked from the Tate Britain website.