Visiting Kettle’s Yard was one of the highlights of our recent visit to Cambridge. An art gallery with a difference, it used to be the home of an eccentric Englishman, Jim Ede and his wife Helen. They moved to Cambridge in 1957 and bought four dilapidated cottages on the edge of the town centre, knocking them through to create a single house.

Trained as an artist, Jim had previously been a curator at the Tate Gallery in London and through his work became friends with Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth Henry Moore and other leading members of the Avant-garde art scene. Moving into their new home in Cambridge they filled it with works of art they had collected from their friends and other artists. Jim’s mission in life was to spread the word about Modern Art and held “open house” weekday afternoons during term time for students from the University, local artists and anyone else interested to see his collection

In 1966 Jim donated Kettle’s Yard to the University of Cambridge, but stayed on as “honorary curator”. An extension was built which opened in 1970 as a more formal exhibition space and also for chamber concerts.

Today the tradition of the “open house” has been continued. It’s open every day except Monday, but only between 2 and 4 o’clock in the afternoon during the winter and 1.30 until 4.30 pm during the summer. Arriving at the front door, visitors have to pull the bell chord and wait for the door to be opened. We were greeted by one of the very pleasant and enthusiastic ladies (I guess they are volunteers) who introduced us to the house and explained that we were welcome to wander through at will and could sit on any of the chairs, just making sure that we didn’t disturb any of the displays.

It’s very different from a normal art gallery. It’s been left more or less the way it was when Jim and Helen were living there with furniture, books and other items. There are pictures, sculptures and various other objects displayed throughout the building. Paintings by important artists are hung everywhere – including in the bathroom and toilet!

They’re not always displayed at normal eye level. There were some paintings hung low down close to the floor, which could only really be viewed either by kneeling down or by sitting in one of the many chairs scattered around the house.

There are paintings and sculptures by a large number of artists including Ben Nicholson and his first wife, and Winifred,  Barbara Hepworth, Alfred Wallis, Christopher Wood, Joan Miro, Constantin Brancusi and Henry Moore. There’s a large number of works by the French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, who died in 1915 fighting in the First World War when he was only 24. Jim bought almost his entire output in 1927, although he later donated a number of works to the French State and various institutions.

Seated Woman (1914)  by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

Dancer (1913) by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

Wrestlers (1913) relief by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

The week following our visit, a exhibition devoted to him was due to open in the gallery adjoining the house. It was a pity to miss it.

As well as the works of art there are displays of objects including glass, ceramics and natural objects, including collections of pebbles artistically arranged.

I particularly liked these displays , and I think that the engraving on this large pebble is definitely apt.

I loved wandering around the rooms in the older part of the house – the original five cottages. The extension was more like a gallery space – not surprising as that was what it was designed for. It lacked the character of the older part of the house, but we enjoyed looking at the art.

Jim didn’t have much money and his collection was assembled due to the generosity of his artist friends who sold works to him at a favourable price and even made donations.  So quite a lot of the paintings are quite small, and there are quite a few earlier works from Ben Nicholson and some of the other St Ives school – purchased or donated before they made their names. There was a large number of paintings by the naive painter from St Ives, Arthur Wallis, who was discovered and championed by Nicholson and Christopher (Kit) Wood.

Two painting by Arthur Wallis

I became interested  in the St Ives school of artists just over 12 months ago and last year spent some time finding out more about them and visiting galleries where their works were on display. So it was  good to be able to see such a large number of their works on display. I was also pleased to have the opportunity to see such a comprehensive collection of sculptures and other works by  Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. I’d first come across him during a visit to the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2009 where there was an exhibition devoted to his life and work.

But it was also good to be able to see work by other artists, some of whom I’d not come across before. There are no labels or information on the pictures and sculptures in the house. This is a deliberate policy intended to allow visitors to look at the art works without prejudice and consequently be able to discover new artists or even enjoy works by artists they they may have previously said they didn’t like.

I’d heard about Winifred Nicholson before the visit, but hadn’t seen much of her work. Kettle’s Yard have ten paintings by her in their collection and several were on display during our visit. They’re mainly landscapes and still lives, painted in bright pastel colours in an impressionistic style. She’s less well known than her first husband, but deserves wider recognition.

Two pictures by Winifred Nicholson – Seascape with dinghy (1926) and Road along the Roman Wall (1926) with a Caritas(1914) by Henri Gaudier-Breska on the table between them

Two artists I discovered during the visit were William Congdon and Italo Valenti. There were several works by both of them on display, so they were clearly favourites of Jim. I‘ll have to do some further research on them both.

Congdon was an American who, after the Second World War, moved to Italy. His paintings are abstract with thick layers of paint which had been applied with a palette knife, and colours are mixed on the canvas rather than the pallet. He wrote:

Use a knife – never a brush that only compromises. A knife constructs – without tricks…. Don’t mix colors – mix ideas, feelings”

William Congdon – The Black City I (New York)

Italo Valenti. was Italian (no surprise with that name!) who specialised in abstract collages. He was introduced to Jim by Ben Nicholson with whom he’d held a joint exhibition in 1963.

Three collages by Italo Valenti

The two hours we spent at Kettle’s Yard just seemed to disappear. There was so much to see. It’s somewhere that would repay regular visits. It’s just a pity it’s so difficult for us to get to Cambridge.

Fortunately Kettle’s Yard have an excellent website with a virtual tour and comprehensive database of the artists and their works. So I’ll have to make do with that for the time being. But that’s not as good as wandering round the real thing. So I’ll have to find an excuse to go back down there again.

To me, a chapel is either a small building used for Christian worship, typically by Methodists or non-conformists, or part of a larger structure such as a cathedral. At Oxford and Cambridge the word seems to mean something different altogether. All the colleges have a chapel but in most cases they are really large churches – and, indeed, the chapel at Christ’s College, Oxford is also the city’s cathedral.

While we were in Cambridge recently we visited a few of the colleges, and the “tourist route” around the college usually included looking inside the chapel. King’s College chapel is worth a visit for it’s own sake. It’s a fantastic example of a late Gothic period building – in the style known as “Perpendicular Gothic”.

King’s College was founded in 1441 by King Henry VI, hence it’s name. He intended to create a prestigious institution and building and obtained and cleared land in the centre of the town for it’s construction. Nobody was in a position to argue with the King if he decided to grab their land for his vanity project!

Henry Vi (image source Wikipedia)

In those days, the colleges were religious institutions, so the most important building was the college chapel and Henry was determined to make his mark by having a chapel bigger and more beautiful than those of the other colleges in Cambridge and Oxford. The foundation stone was laid by the King in July1446. Building continued even when the Wars of the Roses broke out in 1455 but when  Henry was taken prisoner in 1461  the workmen packed up and went home. Henry was murdered in 1471 and was succeeded by the Yorkist Edward IV. Work stopped but resumed under Edward’s successor, Richard III, the hunchbacked villain of Shakespeare’s play of the same name. It was finished during the reigns of the Tudor kings (who overthrew the Yorkists)  Henry VII and his son Henry VIII. The main structure being completed in 1515. Tudor symbols, including the Tudor rose and the portcullis, the heraldic badge of Henry VII’s mother’s family,the Beaumonts, are evident throughout the building.

The distinguishing features of Gothic architecture are the pointed arches, buttresses supporting the walls allowing a high proportion of the structure to consist of windows. With Perpendicular Gothic the tracery in the windows and some other structural elements are dominated by strong vertical lines and the vaulting in the ceiling can be highly complex.

The Chapel dominates the view as you walk along King’s Parade towards the Market Square. It’s a tall, massive, very impressive building with distinctive, highly decorated, pinnacles at each corner and on top of the many buttresses which support the walls. The walls themselves almost seem to be composed entirely of stained glass windows.

Inside light floods in through the windows. During our visit it was a sunny day and the colours from the glass in the windows in the south wall were reflected on the masonry.

The windows are beautiful, and the masonry highly decorated with intricate patterns and carvings, but the most outstanding feature, which almost takes your breath away, is the magnificent fan vault roof.

Fan vaulting is a particularly English innovation from the late “Perpendicular Gothic” period. The fan vault in the King’s College Chapel is the largest of them all. The masonry with hundreds of fine ribs radiating across the ceiling resembles, delicate fine lace and looks like it wouldn’t be capable of supporting the roof. I doubt that the masons who constructed fully understood the complex underlying engineering principles. These structures were developed over many years by trial and error, but they knew what worked. And they weren’t wrong – their masterpiece has stood for 450 years and doesn’t look like its about to fall down.

Further information on fan vaulting can be found here, here and here.

Picture source: Wikipedia

The musicians were predominantly relatively young and a high proportion of them were rather attractive young women. An article I saw in the Guardian a few months ago referred to his ensemble as Nigel’s “mid life crisis orchestra”. They were probably not far off the mark!

The first half of the concert was devoted to The Four Elements – three of the four movements (air, earth and water – he missed out fire) and the underture, a piece written as an overture but played last. According to the publicity for the tour,

the Four Elements is a highly descriptive composition, inspired by the elements of earth, water, air and fire, which takes the listener on a journey of exhilaration, contemplation and celebration.

The pieces were a fusion of styles – classical, rock and jazz, and included vocal sections. I enjoyed the music, although had some reservations about the vocals. I’d listened to the album before the concert by Spotify and didn’t think some of the vocals worked, particularly on Earth. However, I have to say, that they came across much better live.

The second half, after the interval, was devoted to the Four Seasons , with a couple of Bach pieces interjected between Spring and Summer. It was a very different interpretation. It started off more or less in a traditional classical style (even if rock and jazz instruments were being played) but as the concert proceeded through the seasons more rock and jazz elements were introduced and Nigel switched from his acoustic violin to his electric one. He used effects pedals and in some sections his violin could have been mistaken for a rock guitar. There was input from the vocalists and even spoken sections of poems. It was very different to a traditional interpretation.

I enjoyed the concert. It was a  little self indulgent and I thought some aspects didn’t completely work, but there’s nothing wrong with trying out new approaches. Without experimentation music would ossify. Nigel clearly enjoyed himself and lapped up the adulation.

As for the audience – I think he won over the overwhelming majority. There was sincere, enthusiastic applause at the end with a large proportion of the audience on their feet – and he came back to play three more short pieces. I think just about everyone went away satisfied by an enjoyable, if flawed, performance. It was a good night. And Nigel certainly can play the violin.

Bounded to the south by the River Ribble and to the west by the M6, the original quarry site has been transformed into a series of pools, lakes, marshes, woodlands and reed beds as habitats for birds and other wildlife.

I called into the site to break a journey up the M6 on Friday. The main reason for my short sop was to have a look at the “Visitor Village” that has been constructed on the reserve and which has had some coverage in the press. The main reasons its attracted attention is that it its been built on a giant concrete raft which floats on the main lake and has also won an award for its ecologically sound design.

Its the first building to be awarded the "outstanding" category by the British Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM). They’ve used recycled and reclaimed materials in the construction, newspapers for insulation and utilised natural, rather than mechanical ventilation.

You encounter the visitor centre as you drive down the track leading to the site rising out of the lake. It’s actually a number of individual buildings housing a restaurant, conference centre, information centre and shops, clustered around a courtyard. The buildings have relatively low walls and high pitched roofs, covered with oak shingles. The high roof spaces help with the natural ventilation but are also the dominant architectural feature. Once the site matures the reeds should have grown high enough to hide the walls so the roofs will only be visible.

The reason for floating the the building  is due to the nature of the site. Its liable to flood and floating it on the water solves the problems that this would create. The raft is connected to the land by walkways and it can rise by as much as 3 metres as the water level changes.

The design is certainly quite striking and makes an impression on the visitor. Inside, I was less impressed. The walls are clad in white painted timber and like some of the reclaimed materials used in the toilet facilities I thought that they had a rather grubby, soiled look which I expect will only become more pronounced over time.

I didn’t have much time to explore the site, but it still had a very unfinished appearance. It’s previous use as an industrial gravel pit was still evident. However, habitats can’t be created overnight and it will be interesting to see how it changes over the next few years. Its only half an hour’s drive away so I expect I’ll be visiting it again in the not too distant future.

One of the main reasons for our recent trip to Cambridge was to visit the exhibition of paintings from the “golden age” of Dutch art  – “Vermeer’s Women: Secrets and Silence” at the Fitzwilliam Museum. The exhibition only runs until 15 January so we had to arrange our visit early in the New Year.

The title of the exhibition is a little misleading. It implies that it’s an exhibition of Vermeer paintings. However, only 4 out of the 31 works on display were by him. The others were by other Dutch artists from the same period. All the paintings featured women in more or less intimate, everyday situations in a domestic setting. They are pictured carrying out domestic tasks, such as peeling parsnips or sweeping the floor, at their toilette and at leisure, playing the virginal, reading or writing letters.

Some visitors may have been disappointed that there were so few works by Vermeer, but given that there are only 34 paintings that have been attributed to him, the 4 on display are a relatively high proportion of his works.

The exhibition came about after the Fitzwilliam lent a Titian painting they own to the Louvre in Paris. In return, they asked to borrow Vermeer’s Lacemaker. The exhibition takes this as its starting point.

The other Vermeer works in the exhibition are A lady at the virginals with a gentleman ‘The Music Lesson’ (c.1662-5) on loan from The Royal Collection; A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (c.1670) from the National Gallery, London; and Young Woman Seated at a Virginal loaned by a private collection in New York.

As we were staying at a hotel almost facing the museum we arrived shortly after it opened and were able to go straight upstairs to the gallery where the exhibition was taking place. It seemed reasonably quiet but when we went through the door into the gallery it was already fairly crowded with visitors. It got more and more busy during the next hour although by being patient we were able to get a decent view at all the paintings. But when we’d seen them all there was little point trying to go back to have a second look at any of the pictures, The gallery was packed and it was almost impossible to go against the flow.  We had a look around some of the other rooms in the Museum, taking in another, less busy exhibition of drawings Graphite, which was very good. By the time we were leaving around midday, there was a considerable queue of people of the ground floor waiting to be let upstairs.

When I visit an exhibition I usually like to work my way through it then go back and have another look at those works that had particularly captured my interest. Although the number of people crowded in the gallery meant that this wasn’t possible we discovered that due to the exhibition’s popularity the opening hours had been extended until 7 p.m. Monday to Friday (and 6 p.m. at the weekend) so we decided to go back again  around 5 p.m. before we returned to our hotel.  By that time the queue had gone and the gallery was much less busy than during the morning, so we were able to revisit the exhibition and wander between those pictures that we wanted to take a more detailed look at. So that worked out well for us.

I thought that the exhibition was excellent. All the works were high quality and the curator has done a good job in pulling them together from a wide range of sources. I liked their intimate, everyday nature. I’m much less keen on bombastic pictures of religious and mythological subjects and portraits of aristocratic individuals and families. Here the subjects were from relatively modest backgrounds – some even of working class women. And they were going about their normal day to day activities.

The Lacemaker was the centrepiece of the exhibition, placed towards the end of the gallery. I was surprised how small it was and it was hung in an extremely large frame, which I though distracted from the painting itself. I can understand why it is considered to be one of Vermeer’s finest works. The composition is interesting and he brings out the concentration on the face of the young women working closely at the fine work she’s creating. He brings out the fine details including the coloured threads being used.

Personally I wasn’t at all disappointed that only four of the paintings were by Vermeer. We knew this before we went. To me it was a good opportunity both to look at those 4 paintings, at least one of which, having come from a private collection, I won’t have chance to see again (fancy owning a painting by Vermeer!). But it was also a chance to discover some new artists.

The paintings by Jacobus Vrel, which are rather quirky, have attracted some attention. Two of them in particular, which are rear views of what looks like an older woman peering through a window. I’m not sure whether he used the same model, but the settings are different. In one (A woman at a window) she is looking through an open window, possibly gossiping with an unseen person outside or watching someone or something. The other picture (Woman at a window waving at a girl) is more intriguing. Here the women looks at a ghostly figure of a child through a closed window. It appears to be dark outside and the girl is only just visible.  The woman is perched on a chair which is leaning forward and almost toppling over. She wouldn’t be able to hold her pose in that position for long. However he hasn’t got the chair right at all. In both of these pictures the window is a very dominant feature.

Jacobus Vrel, Woman at a window, waving at a girl c. 1650 (source: www.pubhist.com)

In these paintings I think that he gets across the way windows would have looked around this period – not completely transparent due to the poor quality of the glass. In the first painting it is daytime and light is coming through the window from outside. I think he represents the effect of the daylight very well, with a stronger light coming through the upper panes and shadows in the right places. In the second painting I think he really captures how a window looks when it’s pitch black outside and I like the way the light from the room is reflected in the window.

Apparently little is known about Vrel. According to the exhibition catalogue

Nothing is known of his identity or even where he worked (we are not even certain that he was Dutch): his oeuvre is small (fewer than forty paintings) and the works themselves are enigmatic.

Some of my favourite paintings in the exhibition, besides the Vermeers, were by Gerard ter Borch. There were five in all, three of them featuring his sister Gesina.  In two of the paintings she is “at her toilet” and in the third she is sitting drinking a glass of wine as she pauses from reading a letter In all three she is wearing silk or satin dresses which were beautifully painted. He really brings out the sheen but also shows all the creases and rucks very effectively.

Gerard Ter Borch (1617-81), Lady seated holding a wineglass, ca. 1665 (Source: www.codart.nl)

The other two show a woman sitting on a chair concentrating intently at the task in hand. In one she is sewing and in the other she is peeling an apple while a young child looks on. I think that portrayal of the woman, her figure and features, is very strong as is the representation of her clothing.

There were many other good paintings on display and I learned a lot about Dutch painting as well as being introduced to some artists that I’ll now have to research some more!. The exhibition catalogue, a hard back book that includes plates of all the works on show together with essays from a number of experts, is excellent value at only £14-95. There’s also a podcast featuring the curator Betsy Wieseman, available here.

On returning home from Cambridge, reading the Observer on Sunday I spotted an article about the exhibition. No doubt the final week will be even more packed.

It’s nice to have a good break over the Christmas holidays, but after a few days stuck in the house I start to get itchy feet. So on New Years day we decided to go out for the day. It was a pretty miserable day – wet and windy – so a walk in the countryside didn’t sound too appealing. So, particularly as we the roads to be quiet as many people would be nursing their hangovers, we decided to drive over the M62 to the Hepworth Wakefield. We’d been before in August, but there was plenty to see and there had been a few changes, including a new temporary exhibition “The Unquiet Head” by Clare Woods.

There were some changes to the exhibits in the first couple of galleries. The “Cosdon Head” had gone from Gallery 1 – back to Birmingham no doubt – and in Gallery 2 there was an exhibition of drawings selected from Wakefield Council’s collection. I particularly liked the drawings by Henry Moore from his time as a war artist and by Barbara Hepworth. There was also a small lithograph by Picasso.

Henry Moore drawing of Pit Boys during the Second World War - picture source Hepworth website

The Clare Woods exhibition displayed a number of large paintings, created using strongly coloured enamel paints applied to aluminium, in three of the gallery’s rooms, which were created specifically for the Hepworth. Most of the paintings are extremely large. Some are more than six metres high and others ten metres wide. Given their size these large paintings were made up of several panels joined together.

Clare Woods at the Hepworth Wakefield - picture source Hepworth website

According to the Hepworth’s website

Clare Woods will explore her interest in the power and history of rock formations in the British landscape, and its various manifestations in the works of artists such as Hepworth, Moore, Sutherland, Piper and Nash.

Her work is abstract, but those in the first and third rooms clearly represent rock formations like those found on windswept moorland.

Her use of enamel paints was interesting as she’s not the only modern artist working in that medium. George Shaw, who was nominated for the Turner Prize last year (many people think he should have won), creates pictures using Humbrol enamels, more typically used to paint model aircraft. His subject matter and style is quite different to Clare’s. He paints very realistic, photographic, images of the housing estate in Coventry where he grew up, very different from the abstract works in the exhibition. Clare’s paintings are dominated by strong, bright colours whereas George’s are painted in more subdued, earthy tones. Yet there are parallels. Besides using similar media, both artists are inspired by landscapes, even if they are different, and both work from photographs -

Clare Woods’ paintings are derived from her photographs of undergrowth and vegetation, which are taken at night, often in desolate, contested or overlooked locations such as areas of scrub or deep woodland. (Source here)

There’s a parallel with another artist too – David Hockney who, for the last few years, been creating paintings of the East Yorkshire landscape, many of them, like Clare’s work, very large in scale and painted on several individual canvases.

I like abstract works  particularly those inspired by the landscape. However, I actually preferred the smaller works displayed in the middle room, with images that resembled heads.

There’s a short film about the exhibition on Youtube

It was interesting to see the article in the Observer this morning about Vermeer’s Women: Secrets and Silence at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, as we’d just returned home after a short break of a couple of days in the city where we’d visited the exhibition.

We travelled down on the train last Wednesday and for a while during the journey thought we might not get there. The country was being battered with strong winds for the first few days of the New Year and the train to London was running 30 minutes late due to problems with the power lines in Cumbria when it finally arrived at Wigan. We lost some more time during the journey due to the weather conditions and then when we reached Rugby, less than an hour from London, the train ground to a halt. After a short while there was an announcement over the intercom telling us why we’d stopped. We were told that there had been a fatality on the line ahead of us at Leighton Buzzard and we were likely to be stuck for some time. I had visions of being stranded for three or four hours – no trains were moving either north or south on the main line. Some passengers even made the decision to abandon their journey and head back north via Birmingham taking a local service that wasn’t affected by the incident. However, we got moving after only an hour as the train was diverted onto a slower line so it could get past the location where the incident occurred. We finally arrived in London Euston two hours late.

There was chaos at the station as train movements on the West Coast main line had been badly disrupted. But there was no point being annoyed. It wasn’t the fault of the train operators and it has to be said the effect on travellers was a minor inconvenience compared that on the family of the person who was killed./p pA short walk took us to Kings Cross were we caught an express train to Cambridge – only 45 minutes journey.

We stopped in quite a fancy Boutique hotel – the “Hotel du Vin”, which was very conveniently located almost opposite the Fitzwilliam Museum. It wasn’t cheap, but accommodation in the city centre is generally expensive. There are plenty of places to eat and drink with restaurants, cafes and pubs which serve food.

We’d originally hoped to visit a museum or college during Thursday afternoon but our late arrival around 4 o’clock meant it was getting close to closing time. So after checking into our hotel we decided on taking a walk around the town. Being January it went dark before 5 o’clock and it seemed like it was really late as we explored the town.

I’d been to Cambridge before a few times when I was working away and staying in Letchworth which is only a relatively short drive or train journey from the city, but this was the first time I’d been able to spend more than a few hours there.

Having spent a few days in Oxford last June, it was interesting to be able to compare the two University towns. Cambridge is the smaller of the two and was more intimate. It felt more medieval – all the streets in the city centre were narrow and winding and were largely traffic free making it easy to explore – the main hazard was the bicycles which appeared silently and many of the cyclists didn’t seem to give way to pedestrians. We even saw a collision between two cyclist – an elderly man and a younger woman – and the man got a little abusive toward the woman, blaming her for the accident – an example of two wheeled road rage.

As with Oxford the town is dominated by the Colleges. There are 31 of them, most of them with a long history. Each College is an independent institution with its own property and income, and some of them are extremely wealthy. The Colleges appoint their own staff and are responsible for selecting students with teaching shared between the Colleges and University departments./p pThe town centre with its market square and main shopping streets, is surrounded by the colleges which are closed in behind their walls. In most cases it’s only possible to peer inside through a small gate, when it’s open, to get a glimpse of the privileged world inside.

The exception is Kings College where the massive Chapel and main college building dominate Kings Parade, one of the main thoroughfares in the town centre.

Most of the colleges open to the public for several hours most days for a modest entry fee (in some cases entry is free) although there is only limited access to the grounds and buildings.

The architecture is impressive in a range of styles – gothic and neo-classical and a large number of buildings from the Tudor period in the older colleges such as St John’s, Trinity and Queens. There aren’t many Tudor style buildings in the north of England so I was particularly keen to have a look at these. Many of the colleges have buildings from a number of periods, constructed as they expanded and “modernised”

One of the most picturesque parts of the town is “the Backs” – a section of the River Cam between the Magdalene Street bridge in the north and the Silver Street bridge in the south where several Colleges#160; back on to the river. The banks are owned by the colleges and access is restricted. It would be pleasant to walk along the river here. Access to some sections can be gained during college visits but a full promenade along the Backs isn’t possible. However visitors can take a trip along the river on a punt – either by hiring one (for the brave only!) or by buying a ticket for one of the “a “chauffeured tours“.

We were lucky with the weather. After the wild conditions earlier in the week we woke on Friday morning to a clear blue sky (although it clouded over later during the afternoon). It was relatively mild for the time of the year too with very little wind. So it made for good sightseeing conditions.

Being early January there were very few students around. Cambridge undergraduates have a long Christmas break finishing early December and not returning until late January. I was surprised at the number of tourists. Despite being out of season there were a few around besides ourselves, but despite this the town was fairly quiet making it pleasant to wander around the streets and colleges. The galleries we visited were another matter. The “Vermeer’s women” exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum was absolutely packed.

There was plenty for us to see during our short visit. We visited a number of colleges, the Fitzwilliam Museum and Kettle’s Yard. I’d have liked to have looked at the Whipple Museum of the History of Science and the Polar Museum at the Scott Polar Research Institute, but time didn’t allow. I guess we’ll have to add Cambridge to the list of places we’d like to re-visit.

Monet in his garden at Giverney – Picture source: Wikipedia

The Tate recently announced that the summer exhibition at the Liverpool gallery will be devoted to three artists – J M W Turner, Claude Monet and Cy Twombley*.  According to their press release the exhibition:

“will examine the art historical links and affinities between three artists who were all considered radical painters in their time, suggesting common characteristics and motivations underlying their late style. The exhibition will explore their shared fascination with light, landscape, the sublime and mythology as well as the painterly qualities of their work, whether as makers of figurative or abstract images.  Displaying over sixty works, the exhibition will treat each artist in considerable depth, with rooms juxtaposing the works of two, or all three, of the artists.”

One of the main attractions will be five of Monet’ paintings of waterlilies (Nymphéas), two of which have never been shown in Britain before.

There are over 250 of Monet’s waterlily paintings displayed in galleries around the world, including the Musée Marmottan and the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris. We visited both during a family holiday in the city a few years ago.

The Impressionists were the first group of artists to turn away from attempting to produce photographic like paintings. Instead they tried to capture the overall visual effect (i.e. impressions) rather than concentrating on detail. They used broad brush strokes to apply blocks of colour which mixed “optically” (i.e. when viewed) rather than blend them on the canvas. Monet’s later works, especially the Nymphéas, pushed this technique towards it’s limits. As my son remarked – close up the pictures look a mess but you can see what he’s painted when you stand back.

The Musée Marmottan is one of our favourite galleries in Paris and we’ve visited it a few times. It’s much smaller than the massive Musée d’Orsay (a visit there is exhausting – there’s too much to see in a day) but has an excellent collection of Impressionist paintings featuring a number of major works by Monet, including several waterlilies and “Impression Sunrise” (Impression, soleil levant) the painting after which the Impressionist school was named. It also has an excellent collection of paintings by Berthe Morisot. It’s slightly off the beaten track in a well to do part of Paris not far from the Bois de Boulogne but well worth the ride out on the Metro. We find that it takes a couple of hours to look through the collection and there are not so many that you become overwhelmed meaning that you can spend time studying and contemplating the paintings.

The  Orangerie is at the Pace de la Concorde end of the Jardin des Tuileries. The lower gallery displays pictures from the Collection Jean Walter et Paul Guillaume which includes works by Derain, Cezanne, Renoir, Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse and Marie Laurencin. But the main reason most people visit the museum is to see the collection of Monet’s Nymphéas displayed in two specially built galleries on the ground floor. There are 8 large murals which were donated to the nation by Monet after the First World War. The setting is magnificent. The galleries are oval and lit by natural light from large skylights in the ceiling which really brings out the colours.

* Turner Monet Twombly: Later Paintings will be on show at the Tate Liverpool from 22 June to 28 October 2012. The exhibition is organised by Moderna Museet, Stockholm, where it will be displayed until 15 January 2012, in collaboration with Tate Liverpool and Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (11 February – 28 May 2012).

I’ve been to see the current exhibition based on Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” at the Tate Liverpool a couple of times since it opened at the beginning of November, the most recent just before Christmas. According to the gallery’s publicity it’s

“the first exhibition of its kind to explore how Lewis Carroll’s stories have influenced the visual arts, inspiring generations of artists. The exhibition will provide insight into the creation of the novels and the inspiration they have provided for artists through the decades.”

The first part of the exhibition up on the 4th floor is based around the book itself and includes

• A copy of Carroll’s original manuscript
• John Tenniel’s preliminary drawings for the first edition of the novel
• examples of drawings and photographs by Carroll
• Victorian memorabillia relating to the book – other versions of the book, pictures and illustrations, posters for plays, toys and other objects

Eye Nose and Cheek by F E McWilliam

For me, the exhibition is something of a mixed bag and is more like three exhibitions that are loosely connected rather than a coherent whole. The first part of original manuscripts and memorabillia could certainly have worked as a stand alone exhibition about the book that would appeal to lovers of Carroll’s classic tale. However I don’t think that the rest of the exhibition really worked. There were too many exhibits which had only a tenuous connection to Alice and which seem to have been included to “pad out” it out. So overall, a good idea that hasn’t quite worked.

Despite this, the visits were worthwhile, if not completely satisfying. The manuscripts and original drawings were certainly worth seeing as were a number of the works on display. I particularly liked a number of the surrealist paintings and sculptures displayed, particulary three paintings by Max Ernst and two sculptures by the Irish artist F. E. McWilliam. The latter’s sculpture Eye Nose and Cheek reminded me somewhat of the Cheshire Cat, so its inclusion was probably justified. I’ve not really come across McWilliam’s work before and never taken much of an interet in Max Ernst, but visiting the exhibition has fired my interest.

Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell (1883-1937) was one of the group of four Scottish artists collectively known as “the Scottish Colourists”, the others being Samuel John Peploe (1871-1935), George Leslie Hunter (1877-1931) and John Duncan Fergusson (1874-1961) .  They were all strongly influenced by French Avant-garde art movements from the early Twentieth Century – the Impressionists, Post Impressionists and Fauvists.

In practice, all four artists had their own individual styles, but the French influences come through, particularly in their early works. The Colourist label is applied because they all used bright, vibrant colours.

The Colourists seem to be the flavour of the month in Scotland at the moment. The Hunterian Art Gallery  in Glasgow  is showing an exhibition of work by John Fergusson until 8 January 2012, which we visited earlier this year and there’s a major retrospective of Cadell’s work being shown at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. The latter is the first of a series of exhibitions which will feature each of the Scottish Colourists in turn over the next few years.

We visited the Cadell exhibition a few weeks ago. It has brought together a large number of his works from throughout his career from public and private collections. There are four rooms, three showing paintings in chronological order with the fourth devoted to paintings and sketches he produced during his regular visits to the remote Scottish island of Iona.

The first room shows earlier works from the time when, as a young man, he divided his time between Paris and Edinburgh and from 1907 when he enrolled at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich.

The second and fourth rooms showed how he developed as an artist. The earlier pictures show a very distinctive Impressionist influence. He then began to develop his own style with areas of flat colour and much finer brushwork. There are three dominant themes in these works – still lives, room interiors (often viewed through an open door which frames the view) and portraits of elegant, well dressed, wealthy women. Some of the paintings encompassed two or even all three of these themes.

Interior with opera cloak (Image source: Wikipedia)

Black Hat, Miss Don Wauchope (Image source: Wikipedia)

The Blue Fan (Image source: Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art)

I quite liked the Impressionist style paintings, although J though that they were second rate. I had mixed feelings about the later works.  I liked the pictures of the women. I thought he composed them well and the models seemed alive. I had mixed feelings about the interiors. I liked some but was less keen on others. But I found the still lives uninteresting and the flat two dimensional look  didn’t appeal to me.

During the First World War Cadell  joined the army and fought in the trenches. He was obviously keen as he was refused when he first volunteered but was accepted when he made a second attempt to join up. During his time in the army he produced some sketches and cartoons, examples of which were on display in Edinburgh. I quite liked these which, composed with a few strokes, seemed to bring out the character of the subjects.

Cadell was a regular visitor to the remote Hebridean island of Iona , which attracted other artists too, including Cadell’s friend fellow Colourist, Samual Peploe. One of the rooms was devoted to works produced while he was on the island. Many of these were drawn from private collections and probably won’t be on public show again in the near future after the exhibition closes in March 2012.

I think Iona brought out the best in Cadell and this was definitely my favourite room in the exhibition. One thing i particularly liked were the series of photographs that were taken from the same viewpoints as a number of the paintings. In most cases there was very little difference between the views shown on the photographs and the paintings, reflecting how little the island has changed over the past 80 years or so.

Iona, looking North; Watercolour, (Image source: Wikipedia)

Iona (Image source: Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art)

The exhibition presented an excellent opportunity to gain a good overview of Cadell’s work. However, I came away with mixed feelings. Although I liked some of the paintings and sketches on display, and he is clearly seen as an important Scottish painter, to me, Cadell didn’t come across as a major artist. Having previously seen the Hunter exhibition in Glasgow, I think that the latter was the better, more skilful painter and a much more significant artist. Nevertheless the exhibition was well worth the entry fee. The gallery will be following this with exhibitions devoted to the other Colourists, the next one, due to open In the Autumn of 2012 being devoted to Cadell’s good friend Samuel Peploe.