The Filter^

Pollocks

Play with your own at home here.

After Work Culture

A handy list of London (and regional) galleries & museums open after work: Guardian Unlimited

The Georgian Dead Parrot Sketch

Joshua Reynolds had a parrot. It appears in at least a couple of paintings; his portrait of Kitty Fisher, and most famously his painting of Lady Cockburn and her three eldest sons which hangs in the National Gallery. Those are the two I can think of, there may be others. In the portrait of Lady Cockburn, the bird is clearly added later, such a sitting would be implausible, especially given the notorious bad-temper of the bird. I rather like the way that the bird turns its back grumpily upon the assembled children, who seem less like they are aping the cherubs in Van Dyck’s painting Charity so much as they are just messing around. Cherubs are allowed to misbehave, children aren’t – they just irritate, and the parrot’s feathers are duly ruffled in annoyance.

The implication, I think, is that the sitting in the portrait of Kitty Fisher is genuine. She plays with the bird, and they both seem at ease with each other. The parrot is in the background however; its plumage is muted in comparison to the clothes and complexion of London’s most prestigious prostitute of the day. The main thing though is that they are getting on, isn’t it? She has tamed the disgruntled creature, and if we are to assume (as various critics have) that she was Reynolds’ mistress at this time, well she might.

I’m gradually starting to think that George Crabbe’s ‘friendship’ with Reynolds has been somewhat exaggerated by Victorian biographers keen to place him within the highpoint of fashionable society whilst at Belvoir. Certainly they met and knew one another, Crabbe even visited Reynold’s studios while he was working on The Infant Hercules Strangling the Serpents. I’m just not convinced that they got on. A difficult thing to prove, and not necessarily of much importance or interest to anyone, but there are various swipes made against him in the poems and one explicit reference made in ‘The Patron’ to the Duchess of Rutland’s curate (who Crabbe was) being jealous of the attention she paid to her painter, Reynolds.

With this in mind, it is perhaps worth reconsidering the motives with which he present’s Catherine Lloyd’s tragi-comic stuffed parrot in ‘The Parish Register’:

Her neat small room, adorn’d with maiden-taste,
A clipp’d French puppy, first of favourites, graced:
A parrot next, but dead and stuff’d with art;
(For Poll, when living, lost the Lady’s heart,
And then his life; for he was heard to speak
Such frightful words as tinged his Lady’s cheek:)
Unhappy bird! Who had no power to prove,
Save by such speech, his gratitude and love.

If you can’t gain the attentions of your patron’s wife over a man, kill his parrot in a poem. From memory, the portrait of Lady Cockburn in the National hangs only a few feet away from that most famous Georgian painting of a dead parrot, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, it’s a coincidence I think Crabbe would have been pleased with.

Children's Art

- Is it true that only mad people can draw a perfect circle freehand?
- No - there is no such thing as perfection in a drawing.
an interview with Tony Hart (link)

Do you remember, just before Newsround, watching Hartbeat for ideas you'd never try, but adults seemed to think children liked to watch arts&crafts shows and we did, but we never actually copied what they were doing. They entertained us with their crazy ideas, and we humoured them by watching. I was 17 when I realised that "sticky-back plastic" meant "sellotape", and so maybe I could have made something. I never had crate paper though, or the liquid glue you kept in a jar with a little spatula stuck to the sides. You had them at school, but not at home.

The Gallery was always the best part of Hartbeat, humming that catchy tune (can you remember how it goes??), and mocking the standard of submissions. My sister would say: "She's 5 years younger than you" and i'd say "Well I could still do better even then". The cosy world of Tony Hart, his cravates, Morph, came to an end as the BBC pulled the plug, and in it's place we had the ITV alternative: Art Attack! You can tell from the exclamation mark that this was an altogether more hip and colourful program. The set wasn't an old man's studio - it was an oversized pencil case inhabited by the "ultimate loser" Neil Buchanan (pictured). I think he reintroduced Morph, and Tony and Neil are good friends, but I felt it was a major shift in the landscape of childrens television. Bloody Thatcher.

Which brings me to the art, and our appraisal of children's creativity. Call me harsh, but i'm not a big fan of meaningless encouragement. There's no point nodding to a kid and saying "great work" because after a while it becomes automation, and futile. I'd prefer to look at it critically, and praise them where it's due. Indeed, I find it very funny to mock rubbish pictures, and laugh at how pathetic some "attempts" can be... Maddox is an infamous critic of children's paintings. His analysis is very funny and  I like it.

But yes it is a little harsh, which all brings us to the art of Don Devrie.

He's a professional artist, and takes pictures drawn by his young neice and modifies them to create fantasy. It's a beautifully creative enterprise.

Which brings me to Alex Garland's most recent book The Coma (Observer review | buy it) I almost bought in on my way through Heathrow the other week, and regret it now because I ended up watching a shite film... The Coma is very very short, and that shouldn't be frowned upon. The text is accompanied by exquisite woodcuts created by his father, the political cartoonist Nicholas Garland (Telegraph article)

It's a wonderful father-son collaboration, bridging mediums to create a prompt. Something to question similar boundaries to those explored within the plot of the novel. It says that art is about more than "just having a go", but freedom to tinker and create should be paramount. There is no such thing as perfection in drawing, so why not explore a little and take a chance. It's something we should encourage all children to do, and if they have a guiding hand from their father or uncle, it's all the more charming.

Mr. Picassohead

If you have 5 minutes to knock about, why not try Mr Picassohead, where you can create something like this:

Nice, Everyday

"THE DAILY NICE is about my enthusiasm for looking and being.

Everyday I show a photograph of something that made me happy."

www.thedailynice.com

A Christmas Card Design Suggestion II

Madonna di Loreto
1603-05
Caravaggio
oil on canvas
260x150cm
st Augustino, Rome

Last year's is here

Unilever Series 2005: Embankment

Today sees the opening of the latest installment of the Unilever Series, at Tate Modern. This time the honour and challenge of filling the Turbine Hall goes to former Turner Prize winner Rachel Whiteread.

Information about the project is available here. As ever, it'd be pointless to pass judgement without being able to hear/see it in the flesh. To me though, the event is somehow worth more than the installation - the Unilever Series is far greater than the sum of its parts.

Past artists:

I do, I undo, I redo | Louise Bourgeois
Double Blind | Juan Munoz
Marsyas | Anish Kapoor*
The Weather Project | Olafur Eliasson
Raw Materials | Bruce Nauman

*the best

afterthought

If you're looking for new writing on conceptual art, then look no further...

afterthought is an engagement on the part of a younger generation of writers, curators and artists with some of the conceptual strategies of the 1960s and 1970s which continue to influence contemporary art.

It is edited by Mike Sperlinger, costs £8.95, and is available through Rachmaninoff's.

Stop Voyeur

You know that feeling when the girl across the street starts to take her bra off at her bedroom window, and you watch intently because it's the nearest you'll get to flesh... but after she's turned away you reflect tinged with guilt, ashamed at being such a pathetic lonely squid?
I don't, but I imagine it feels somewhat like I do now, having read an article on Harper Lee in The Independent, and a piece on Lucien Freud in The Sunday Times Magazine. Last week I visited my god-daughter, and brought her a copy of 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. I also gave her a Children's version of the New Testament, and will enjoy seeing which she prefers. Even though it was on my school curriculum I managed to enjoy it, and quite rightly it's considered to be one of the classic American novels. Of course Lee never wrote another novel, as is her right.

In contrast to Lee, Lucien Freud is an engine of creativity very much in the cobweb of contemporary culture. Yet like Lee he shuns the exclusive interviews, leading a rich and veiled life of mystery. This is his right.

Neither creator owes us anything. And I feel very uneasy writing my own speculative mumblings now. If you are the sort who can't resist an ogle through the curtains then I'm sure you can track down the links. But as best as I can, I hope to convey the irrespectability of trampling through the allure of greatness.