Richard Hamilton: The Late Works in 300 words

This is another exhibition I only just got to before it finished, and I’m glad I did. I like his classic, canonical collages but knew nothing about what he did after that. This small but interesting exhibition at the National Gallery has answered at least some of that question.
‘Works’ is the correct term here: Hamilton uses painting, photography and digital images, often together, to explore painting and surface. The recurring tropes become obvious: the nude (mostly the same nude woman), religious homage/parody (particularly the annunciation), reflection and perspective (both painted and digital), self-reference (the same images are used in multiple pictures). To me, these point to investigation of the flat surface itself. Hamilton uses meticulous painted reflections combined with digital images to make us think about what is real and that we are looking at a flat surface. This is not a new thought, but it is executed with such a feeling of curiosity that it works, and works well.
I found this collection both funny and solemn; seeing what Hamilton is doing or a clever way of doing causes the laughter of recognition despite the scene itself. His clean use of the digital, particularly as architectural backdrops, shows constant innovation.
Perhaps the solemnity comes from the timing of the works: many artist’s late work changes in tone slightly. Perhaps the angels, afterlife and mortal flesh are Hamilton’s response, to push himself to try and capture this in a post-modern, self-referential format. His final, unfinished work (shown in tryptich) combines colours, photography and explicit references to other paintings. In all too, it is a puzzle decoding what parts are in what media. This, however, is a puzzle worth finishing; and the exhibition is a worthy tribute to the late Richard Hamilton.

Peter Lely: A Lyrical Vision

I caught the very end of Peter Lely: A Lyrical Vision at the Courtauld today. I have seen plenty of his Windsor and Hampton court beauties, and his presence loomed large in Hampton court’s excellent The Wild, The Beautiful and the Damned earlier this year, so I am pleased to have seen some of his work that is not related to 17th century ladies.

This isn’t a large exhibition; like most of the Courtauld’s temporary exhibitions it is in the space at the top of the stairs. Size certainly is no indication of quality in art (and often makes exhibitions trials of endurance rather than inspirational journeys), so the Courtauld’s focussed and well-curated exhibitions work for me. It is sympathetically curated too; the works have room to breathe and the viewer can get close and personal. The information never descends into biography and calls up other related paintings (I was pleased at the mention of Van Dyke’s Cupid and Psyche, also shown at Hampton Court and very relevant to Lely’s outdoor nudes). My only slight note was that the Rape of Europa looks like it should be hung higher up because of the elongated torsos, rather than at eye level.

All these works are intended to add some nuance to Lely’s life and our experience of him. We do see more of Lely, but this doesn’t show a parallel or different artist. There are still plenty of silk curtains in the wilderness, Grecian urns and classical fountains, and ladies with no tops (and no lack of bottom). This does bring out some of Lely’s themes of voyeurism and pleasure of the senses, and I couldn’t escape the feeling of imminent danger or life on the edge of decay. The Rape of Europa is the narrative moment before the rape; a moment where there is sensual enjoyment of the handsome bull, almost foreplay. This seems to be a recurrent theme: a lad views nude, still sleeping girls; a satyr waits to ambush lovers; Bacchus and his child friends drink but do not yet suffer for their pleasure. We the viewer also act as the about to interrupt voyeur, again for some nude girls. Perhaps this is me projecting the decadence of the time but I keep getting the whiff of fruit about to turn. Even the gender-ambiguous shepherd lad with his shaft-like crook and recorder has a sensual, coming of age ambience through his swirling hair and luscious drapery.

The lack of finish of some of the paintings is a divergence of the normal stately home Lely. He is normally so slick that seeing freely painted landscaping is a bit of a surprise, but a pleasant one. There is an early picture of children that I found very affecting. It is two children, heads only, and very sweet with little of the sickly fermentation of some of his later work.

There is also a less colourful twin exhibition a few rooms on. This is of a tiny proportion of the drawings and prints collected by Lely but gives a wonderful flavour of both his practice for the hands of Beauties, and his reference for their drapes. Again, it is small but provides both knowledge and aesthetic pleasure- a decent summary of the Courtauld Gallery overall in my experience.

Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde at Tate Britain

Writing about Tate’s Pre-Raphaelite exhibition (Victorian Avant-Garde) has proven frustratingly difficult for me- ironically, rather like the exhibition itself.

So, just to be perverse, I’m going to look at a painting not in the exhibition itself, but in the Tate- Millais’ The Knight Errant (on the Tate’s website here: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/millais-the-knight-errant-n01508).

So this is tagged as a pre-raphaelite, and by a member of the PRB- so why isn’t it in this exhibition? This question (to which I don’t know the answer) highlights the difficulty of this new exhibition. It shows work by the PRB members (except when it doesn’t), and the art on show is pre-raphaelite in style (except when it’s not). It’s a slice of the PRB by lofty Victorian themes rather than a story of the brothers.

And, it mostly works. The themes are pretty loose, but it does let the art play off each other and the info is kept to a compact minimum. The art comes off as surprisingly shocking- a garish blast of colour (Holman Hunt), size (Burne-Jones), gilded frames and poetry (Rossetti), along with the sentimental, the slightly amateurish and the highly personal. The style is always going to excite joy or revulsion- personally, I like it with my Marmite on toast.

I felt the exhibition really comes alive in the last couple of rooms- I find Morris’ work constantly interesting, and the massive carpet and May Morris’ bed embroidery were highlights. I also can’t get enough of the massive later works of Burne-Jones, and it’s fantastic to see King Cophetua in the same room as Perseus.

On the down side, I’m not sure the exhibition shows us what pre-raphaelitism actually is, compared to other 19th century paintings. If you come with no PRB knowledge, you’ll probably go away with a good idea of what their work looks like, but not necessarily how or why. Likewise, if you already know the stories well, this will only illustrate and not add to them. If you know a bit about the brotherhood and associates though, then this exhibition will give you a lot. Also, the exhibition book’s fine essays do fill in the scholarly holes missing from the exhibition itself, particularly about the techniques.

I think the premise, that the PRB were avant-garde (at least early on) is a sound one. What is good to see is a thematic, questioning approach to the choice of display- it is a slice of the 19th century visual arts rather than a beginning to end survey of the PRB.

Is this a defining exhibition of the pre-raphaelites for this generation? Probably not, but the questions, juxtapositions and frustrations exposed may well be.