The Wilmington Giant, Eric Ravilious

This week I visited an exhibition dedicated to the short life of mid twentieth-century artist Eric Ravilious at the rather lovely Dulwich Picture Gallery. Ravilious spent much of his life in Sussex, and many of his best works are views of the South Downs and the charming countryside that lies around them. Images of winding country lanes, travellers’ caravans and rolling hills recall a magical rural England, reminders of a time now long past.

I particularly loved his painting of the Wilmington Giant, which can be found on Windover Hill just outside the village of Alfriston.  While many things may have changed since Ravilious painted this scene in 1939, the Wilmington Giant, also known as the Long Man, remains steadfastly the same. He’s been there since time immemorial, and will not doubt still be there for centuries to come; huge, silent and mysteriously magical.

Advertisement

British Folk Art, Tate Britain

It’s hard to know how to define the term ‘Folk Art’, the subject of a current exhibition at London’s Tate Britain. It is often created by self-trained artists, although I should think many of its makers would not think of themselves as artists. Some of it could be described as ‘craft’ as opposed to ‘high art’, but many of the objects in the exhibition were created using incredible skill and effort. A number of the pieces on show were linked with local traditions and customs. Some of them are downright bizarre. But, as you have probably guessed, a fair few of them were also pretty magical.

A wall of shop signs in British Folk Art at Tate Britain

The show gets off to a great start with an impressive yellow wall lined with a selection of shop signs of all shapes, sizes and dates. One takes the form of a giant shoe, fashioned and stitched perfectly from leather just like its normal-sized counterparts. A wonderfully enigmatic sun hangs at the top of the display, looking down on the gallery visitors with a hint of a smile.

A cockerel fashioned from mutton bones in British Folk Art, Tate Britain

Another highlight of British Folk Art is a beautiful life-size cockerel created out of mutton bones by French prisoners of war during the Napoleonic era. Each of its feathers is intricately and individually carved, transforming the most basic material into something lively and enchanting.

A straw effigy of King Alfred in British Folk Art, Tate Britain

Definitely the most extraordinary object in the exhibition is this life-size straw effigy of King Alfred. Reminiscent of the terrifying final scene in cult classic The Wicker Man, it’s hard to get a sense of just how imposing and spooky this figure is without encountering it in person. All the more reason to check out British Folk Art at Tate Britain, and experience a branch of the arts that, despite generally being overlooked, often retains an ancient, even mystical sense of wonder.

An iron shop sign in the shape of a sun from British Folk Art, Tate Britain

Details on visiting British Folk Art can be found here.
All images copyright the Tate.

The Spink, Charleston Farmhouse

Following my climb up Windover Hill, I made the short journey west to Charleston Farmhouse. This beautiful place was once home to artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, and played host to their circle of bohemian friends, now better known as the Bloomsbury Group.

The interior of the house, with its murals, painted furniture and fascinating collection of art and objects, is definitely magical. Unfortunately photography is not allowed inside, so I wasn’t able to capture that magic for this blog.

The house and garden at Charleston Farm

However, the perfect English cottage gardens more than made up for that loss. A riot of colourful and perfume, the gardens of Charleston Farmhouse are an oasis of peace and quiet. It was while wandering through those gardens that I came across a small orchard. Hiding in the shadows of the surrounding trees, I found a strange, rather magical sculpture.

The Spink in the garden of Charleston Farmhouse

Further research has revealed that this sphinx-like beast, which is carved out of a large stack of bricks, was created by Vanessa’s son Clive Bell in 1931 and is known as the Spink. Just like the mythical beast that it is named after, the Charleson spink is a bit of an enigma, loitering silently in a quiet corner of the garden.

What is it thinking? Your guess is as good as mine…

Tintern Abbey Seen by Moonlight, Peter van Lerberghe

Today I’ve been to the Ruin Lust exhibition at London’s Tate Gallery. It was a bit of an odd hotch-potch to be honest, and despite its theme, was sadly lacking in magic.
I was however rather taken with this early 19th Century watercolour by Peter van Lerberghe from the Tate’s own collection. Created at a time when exploring romantic ruins was all the rage, the painting captures a group of brave tourists discovering the Gothic delights of Tintern Abbey by torchlight.

Tintern Abbey seen by Moonlight, 1802 by Peter van Lerberghe

It all looks like great fun. I’d love to do it myself, although I might not be bold enough to teeter along the top of the ruins like some of these visitors. And to be honest, I don’t think Cadw, who now take care of the picturesque ruins of Tintern Abbey, would be very keen!

Modern Bestiary, Domenico Gnoli

Domenico Gnoli was born in Rome in 1933, and displayed artistic talent at a precociously young age. He spent some time studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in his home town, but never completed the course and decided to travel the world instead.

Gnoli ended up in London, where he soon established a reputation as a theatrical set designer. By the mid 1950s he was in New York, where he worked as an illustrator for magazines.

These magical images are from a set he created in 1968, entitled Bestiario Moderno (Modern Bestiary), or Cos’è un mostro (What is a monster). They are beautifully drawn, and hauntingly surreal.

I think the flat fish in the bath is my favourite. It’s a little bit sad, and very, very strange.

Gnoli sadly died in New York, aged just thirty six years old, soon after opening a show of his paintings at a major gallery in the city. He left behind only a few completed works. But these weird, wonderful drawings are certain quite a magical legacy, don’t you think?

Leonora Carrington: The Celtic Surrealist, Dublin

I have always made it my rule to only blog about places that I have actually visited myself, or exhibitions that I have viewed in person, but this week it is time to break that rule. After all, I will make any excuse to include some paintings by one of my favourite artists, Leonora Carrington.

Leonora Carrington, Ulu’s Pants, 1952, Oil and tempera on panel, 55 x 91 cm, Private Collection, © Estate of Leonora Carrington / ARS

These works are currently being shown in Dublin, and are featured in Carrington’s first major retrospective in Ireland. I can only dream of going over there myself to see it, particularly as it includes her masterpiece The Giantess, but this time it just isn’t going to happen.

The Giantess, 1947, Tempera on wood panel, 117x68cm, collection of Miguel Escobedo

Still, I can always dream. And of course, if you find yourself in Dublin before the end of January then you have to visit the Irish Museum of Modern Art and let me know just what I am missing!

More details about Leonora Carrington: The Irish Surrealist can be found here

Tomorrow, Elmgreen & Dragset

There’s been outrage in Kensington over the last couple of weeks. Passers-by can’t help but notice the enormous billboard outside the world-renowned Victoria and Albert Museum announcing that a luxury flat is for sale within the museum itself. Shocked locals are calling up to express their disgust at the idea that part of this historic institution is being sold off. A few people have been in touch expressing an interest in buying it. All of them have been informed that the billboard is an elaborate wheeze created by artistic duo Elmgreen & Dragset as part of their latest installation, entitled Tomorrow.

Controversial hoardings outside the V&A, London

I was lucky enough to attend an evening private view of Tomorrow this week. Typically of Elmgreen & Dragset, the installation involves a complex back story – in fact they describe the work as the set from an unrealised film.

The opulent drawing room of Tomorrow
All images courtesy of the artists and Victoria Miro, London

Grand galleries which once housed the V&A’s tapestry collection have been magically transformed into a vast apartment, the home of ageing architectural academic Norman Swann. Born to a wealthy family, Swann has never quite lived up to his potential; none of his designs have ever been built, and now he is old and washed up, out of money and being forced to put the apartment on the market. Visitors to Tomorrow are invited to stroll around the huge, rather soulless chandelier-lit space, taking in the massed ephemera of Swann’s long life.

A strange figure cowers in the fireplace in Tomorrow
All images courtesy of the artists and Victoria Miro, London

But things are never quite what they seem in Elmgreen & Dragset’s world. Take a look beyond the expensive antique furniture and opulent oil paintings and you will notice lots of strange details dotted around the installation. A crack snakes it way across the huge dining table, cutting through the plates on top and the chairs which sit around it. A lifelike mannequin of a schoolboy cowers in a fireplace below a painted portrait of himself. A spooky dummy in a French maid’s outfit stands frozen in the hallway. A gilded vulture leers expectantly over Swann’s luxurious bed.

The luxurious bedroom of Tomorrow
All images courtesy of the artists and Victoria Miro, London

Elmgreen & Dragset provide visitors to the show with a booklet which they have written themselves, a script to the so-called ‘unrealised film’ for which this apartment is the set. I prefer to dream up my own narrative to fit the scene. As you wander around Tomorrow it is impossible not to let your imagination ramble through all sorts of bizarre, magical connotations. What the script that you concoct will look like, well who is to know? The possibilities are tantalisingly endless.

The cracked dining table, Tomorrow
All images courtesy of the artists and Victoria Miro, London

Elmgreen & Dragset’s Tomorrow will be open until 2nd January 2014 at the Victoria & Albert Museum in South Kensington.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/tomorrow-elmgreen-dragset/

Dream No Small Dreams, Ronchini Gallery

This week I stumbled across a rather intriguing exhibition at London’s Ronchini Gallery, entitled Dream No Small Dreams. The show features the work of three artist; Adrien Broom, Thomas Doyle and Patrick Jacobs. All three share an obsession with small-scale fantastical worlds, each using different techniques to create their own miniature, magical alternative realities.

An installation view of Dream No Small Dream: The Miniature Worlds of Adrien Broom, Thomas Doyle and Patrick Jacobs, Courtesy of Ronchini Gallery

Broom’s Frame of Mind photographs portray imagined landscapes inhabited by tiny ‘Borrowers’ style figures. They are cinematic in their scope, if teeny-tiny in their execution.

Left Over Things, Adrien Broom, 2010, digital C-type print, 60 x 40 in, courtesy the artist and Ronchini Gallery

Thomas Doyle’s sculptural scenes of destruction, disaster and mayhem are intricately detailed and beautifully executed, all of them housed in elegant glass domes. They present a bizarre, unsettling world where typical suburban homes are swallowed up by sink holes, lifted off the ground by hurricanes or smothered in overgrown Cinderella-esque vines. Meanwhile, the pint-size protagonists who inhabit them seem blithely unconcerned by the strangeness that surrounds them.

Beset, Thomas Doyle, 2013, mixed media, 17.5 x 14.5 x 14.5 in, Courtesy the artist and Ronchini Gallery

My favourite exhibits in Dream No Small Dreams were without a doubt the hyper-realistic sculptures by Patrick Jacobs. Embedded into the wall and viewed through tiny ‘fish eye’ portholes, these glowing landscapes have more than a hint of the fairytale about them. Jacobs’ teeny weeny dioramas feature sublime vistas of trees, meadows and rolling hills, and are created from an unusual selection of media, including styrene, acrylic, ash, talc and hair. The skill involved in creating these unfeasibly realistic scenes, with each leaf and blade of grass perfectly and fully formed, is astonishing. It isn’t an overstatement to say that I could almost feel with warmth of the summer sun on my face as I gazed through the tiny windows into these magical, miniscule panoramas.

Stump with Curly Dock and Wild Carrot Weed, Patrick Jacobs, 2013, Mixed Media, Courtesy the artist and Ronchini Gallery

Check out Patrick Jacobs’ website here for more wonderful works. It’s hard to get a true impression of their impact from photographs, so if you ever get the chance to see his sculptures in person I recommend you take it. You won’t be disappointed.

Stump with Red Banded Brackets and English Daisies (detail) , Patrick Jacobs, 2013, Mixed Media, 77 x 123 x 80cm, Courtesy of the artist and Ronchini Gallery

Dream No Small Dreams, curated by Bartholomew F. Bland will be at Ronchini Gallery London from 6 September to 5 October, ronchinigallery.com.

Animal Misfit, Thomas Grünfeld

Back to Margate again this week, this time to an exhibition at the fabulous new Turner Contemporary Gallery. This smart, airy art space is currently home to a show entitled Curiosity, which brings together a group of diverse objects inspired by the idea of a 17th Century Wunderkammer. There’s all sorts in there; natural, scientific, artistic, eccentric, much of it distinctly magical. I was fascinated to see Dr John Dee’s crystal and scrying mirror, and enchanted by the delicate glass models of weird and wonderful sea creatures created in the 19th Century by Rudolph and Leopold Blaschka.

But my absolute favourites were two works by German artist Thomas Grünfeld, whose speciality is creating bizarre chimeras from taxidermy animals. This one, which joins the top half of a peacock with the bottom half of a penguin, features in Curiosity.

Misfit (penguin/peacock),Thomas Grunfeld, 2005 © DACS 2013

I am not sure what you would call this strange creature. A peaguin perhaps? Or a pencock? Another example in the show melds the body of a collie dog with the face of a sheep. Strange and unsettling, yet familiar and funny, these sculptures were the highlights of an intriguing exhibition. It’s an experience that will expand your knowledge, but entertain you in the process. Fascinating stuff, and not to be missed!

http://www.turnercontemporary.org/exhibitions/curiosity-art-and-the-pleasures-of-knowing

Witches and Wicked Bodies, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

Apparently Witches and Wicked Bodies is the UK’s first large scale gallery exhibtion dedicated to the subject, surprising given the extensive interest that artists have shown over the last five centuries for images of malevolent hags and mysterious sorceresses. The pictures on display in the show cover most of this period, and works by some of the biggest names in the art history canon are included, amongst them Francisco Goya, Henry Fuseli and Albrecht Dürer. Many of the artworks are on loan from the incredible collection in London’s British Museum, some come from the Tate and a few are from Scotland’s own national collection, but all of them share a fascination with the strange power of these mythical, magical women.

The Four Witches, Albrecht Dürer, 1497

Some of the most striking works on show are the small but powerful monochrome prints, which employ line and tone to create dramatic effects. Goya’s paintings and drawings are rather creepy at the best of times; the prints on display here are downright terrifying. Many of the works included were produced at a time when the existence of witches was beyond doubt, and some books which describe ways to identify and deal with them are also exhibited, complete with elaborate illustrations.

L’Appel de la Nuit, Paul Delvaux, 1938

Witches were certainly not shy, and many are represented as naked and unashamed, flaunting bodies which are either youthful and tempting, or ancient and shrivelled. If, like me, you assumed that the idea of a witch flying on a broomstick was a modern, ‘Disneyfied’ concept, then think again – some of the earliest works in the exhibition show them doing just that. Others even fly around on goats, potent symbols of the devil.

Witches’ Sabbath, Franz Franken, 1606

Witches’ Sabbaths are also well represented, the scenes of diabolical drama featuring crowds of sorceresses indulging in magical excess providing material for some shockingly violent and erotic visions.

Three Weird Sisters from Macbeth, Henry Fuseli, 1783

This being Edinburgh, the three witches which appear in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth get a room all to themselves, demonstrating just how compelling a symbol of mystery and intrigue they were for artists over the years, both in Scotland and around the world. The representations of them could hardly be more different; from bald, whiskered crones to fancy-dressed society beauties, these enchantresses who seemed able to predict the future and shape history in the process, have meant many things to many people.

Untitled (Encryption) from Out of the Woods, Kiki Smith, 2002

Not everything here is historic, and contemporary art also gets a decent look in too. Paula Rego’s prints owe an obvious debt to those of Goya, all dark shadows and strange, otherwordly figures, while Kiki Smith turns her self portrait into an image of a creepy little witch with a huge head and tiny stunted body. Many of the more recent works are by women artists, and a number have obviously feminist intentions, finally changing the image of these witches from lonely, ugly outcasts to powerful independent women.

The Magic Circle, John William Waterhouse, 1886

With four large rooms filled with fascinating works, plus an extensive catalogue featuring colour reproductions and academic essays, Witches and Wicked Bodies is an incredibly comprehensive survey of this magical subject. It is one which has already captivated artists and audiences for centuries. I don’t doubt it will continue to do the same for many centuries to come.

http://www.nationalgalleries.org/whatson/exhibitions/witches-wicked-bodies/

Update: The exhibition has transferred to the British Museum in London until January 2015, details can be found here.

All images courtesy of the National Galleries of Scotland