#the tate

[silvestriste]

Lucretia Borgia Reigns in the Vatican in the Absence of Pope Alexander VI (Frank Cadogan Cowper, 1908-14)

[thepaintedroom]

Edward Le Bas (British, 1904–1966) • Interior • 1951 • Tate, London

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Serendipity or Grace?

On a trip to England age 20 I visited the Tate Britain gallery near Westminster Cathedral. I was awestruck by the magnificent oil paintings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Without knowing anything of Rossetti, they were the images I had chosen to hang in my room in my late teens.

But where were the Rossettis? I saw them when I was 20. I found them again yesterday, at the OLD Tate Britain, still housed in the same building on the Thames. There just happened to be a special show of the life and work of the Rossetti’s of 18th C London! Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his sisters were all artists and poets of that era.

Finding them again featured in a show felt like serendipity just for me! The pensive look of these mythological characters suited the angst of my late teens. The wistful poetry too of Christine Rossetti resonates.

The women were professional models painted by Rossetti as famous women from mythology: Proserpine, Veronica Veronese, Lilith...

[Jocelyn Olivier]

[ryanwclement]

What is Art?

by Ryan Clement OF COURSE, I don’t really know the answer to this age-old question, but my very good friends, F and M, may well have come very close to an – rather than ‘the’ – answer. WE WERE CELEBRATING A VICTORY in a recent court case. We were enjoying our meal in Wembley – they had kindly made the journey South for my sole convenience. We, sorry, I had elected for an Indian meal. Had I…

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[innervoiceartblog]

Artwork page for ‘The Dance’, Paula Rego, 1988 During the 1980s Rego created paintings inspired by her early life in Portugal. While the sce

[galleryofunknowns]

James Archer (b.1823 - d.1904), 'The Parting of Robert Burns and Highland Mary', oil on canvas, no date (1850s), British, for sale est. 50,000 - 80,000 GBP in Christie's British & European Art sale, July 2020.

'Highland Mary' was a dairymaid named Margaret Campbell who hailed from the West Highlands and was described by Burns as 'a warm-hearted, charming young creature', the sweetest who 'ever blessed a man with generous love'. Their 'parting' took place in 1786. Burns's life was in turmoil at this time. He had been forced to break off his engagement to Jean Armour, whom he had made pregnant, and he had financial problems as well. He planned to emigrate to the West Indies, taking Mary, with whom he had long enjoyed 'the most ardent reciprocal attachment', with him; and they met on the second Sunday in May at a 'sequestered spot' on the river Ayr, spending the day together before she left for her home in the Highlands 'to arrange matters among her friends for our projected change of life'. In fact Mary died soon afterwards, probably from typhoid. They never met again, and in due course Burns and Jean Armour married. [...] The Parting of Robert Burns and Highland Mary was shown at the R.S.A. in 1858. Archer was probably consciously anticipating the Burns Centenary that would take place the following year, although the subject was popular in Victorian art, inspiring other paintings, sculptures, and even Staffordshire pottery figures. Archer himself would return to it in a painting shown at the RA in 1881. His 1858 version betrays his debt to the Pre-Raphaelites on several levels: the intensity of the lovers' emotion, their carefully studied gestures and characterisation, and the sensitive, painstaking treatment of the landscape background. Millais seems to be the main influence, and in particular his Order of Release (Tate Britain), which offers a number of parallels too close to be accidental. The picture appeared at the R.A. in 1853, five years before Archer's made its debut, and the fact that the subject is Scottish can only be significant. (x)

[helenisaghost]

Dame Barbara Hepworth, Winter Solstice, 1970. The Tate’s Prints and Drawings Room. via @tate