So long, and thanks for all the fish

Summer 2011 will be remembered for many reasons. News today is that this was the coldest summer for 18 years. We have seen riots in Britain's cities, revolution in Libya and repression in Syria. The East Coast of the USA was hit by earthquakes and a tropical storm. And then there was The Art Tour.

Three months of travelling around the UK by road and rail. Gallery visits and library work. Time spent with family, with friends. Getting to know the beautiful city of Cambridge a little better. Paintings, places, and people.

It has been a privilege and a joy to have this special time made available. The art has been inspiring and the reading instructive. People, both friends and strangers, have welcomed and encouraged. There have been shared meals, church services and other encounters. It's been a pleasure to share this time with so many of you.

The Tour is ending now. There are still books to be read - I bought one in Cambridge last week - and more galleries to visit. I never made it to Liverpool (too big a detour), to the Sandham Memorial Chapel (ran out of time) or to London (so much to see, so little time) and missed out on Dundee (due to poor research). For now though, it really is so long, and thanks for all your interest, your company, and your support.

If only they could talk

Paintings at Hogwarts School have characters that move around. They also talk to Harry Potter and his friends sometime supplying useful information. If only the characters in some of the paintings I've looked at this summer could do the same.

I'd love to ask the six figures in Francois de Nome's King Asa of Judah a few things.

1. Where is the church building in which the artist has put them? France or Italy seem likely but which is it?
2. Are the three soldiers defending the place or invading?
3. Who is the figure running from the explosion? Is he an early seventeenth century terrorist/rioter or just an innocent bystander?
4. Are King Asa and his henchman heroic reformers or representatives of a dictatorial regime?

Perhaps the answers to these questions would help solve the mystery of the painting's meaning. Then again, if the characters are anything like those at Hogwarts maybe not.

Desert Island Pics - the final countdown

Time to finish the selection for Desert Island Pics. The BBC programme that inspired these thoughts is on holiday, presumably on a desert island, but I'm still here.

Added to Dali's 'Christ of St John of the Cross', Degas' 'Red Ballet Skirts', Francois de Nome's 'King Asa', Sutherland's 'Noli me tangere' and Hughes' 'The Nativity' I choose:
The Glen, Port Glasgow by Stanley Spencer
Discovering Spencer's work has been one of the pleasures of the Tour. I hadn't realised just how much religious work he had produced and the range it covers. Resurrection paintings are so interesting and will bear further study in the future. But on the desert island I choose this small picture of everyday life in Port Glasgow during WWII. It's full of joy and will cheer me up as I sit alone under the palm trees.

Apples and Pears by Ben Nicholson
Nicholson and the other St Ives artists have no place in my sabbatical study but their work kept crossing my path in various galleries. Last week I returned to the amazing Kettle's Yard Gallery in Cambridge and this one caught my eye. It's so calm and serene and will help me chill out in the heat.

Le Printemps (Springtime) by Claude Monet
Monet has a been a favourite since my teens. It's been a great sadness that the Impressionist room at the Fitzwilliam has been closed all summer so to make up for the disappointment I'm going to borrow this painting from the store and take it with me. Beautiful colours, always a delight.

When do I leave?

Drawing to an end

Sabbatical time is nearly ended. Reading around all my paintings has been completed. All that remains is to write up the material gleaned this week in Cambridge on the work of Ronald Forbes. As the only living artist of the twelve I've studied the research task took a different shape. Much was available on the web but less in books. I established a link with the work of Gilbert and George which helped to ground the reading, spent time reading modern Scottish history and learned a little about Scottish art. Interesting to note that 'British Art' is generally English - I knew none of the names of those important in Scottish art since the war.

Cambridge was quieter than I've seen it recently. The tourists are fewer in number and the city centre was peaceful this week. Plenty of shoppers in the Grand Arcade - more families and groups of teenagers looking for sale bargains than overseas visitors in search of souvenirs. Traffic too was lighter and our journey out of the city last night easy. Great to have dinner with friends and catch up with news on our way home.

The week ahead will see the drawing together of the project. Already I'm putting together files of material I've collected over the past few months for future reference. Looking over these brings back positive memories of the wonderful places I've visited and all I've done this year. I'll be sad when it all comes to an end and intend to make the most of this final phase.

A trail of destruction

Sad this morning to see television images of destruction and violence. Not, this time, in far away places and war zones but on our doorstep. Spending time in some of the cities involved this year viewing beautiful art it's hard to watch the wanton vandalism.

Some hope in other images - newspaper photos of the 'broom army' coming together to clean up. Human beings are capable of so much good when put to it. We can only hope they prevail over the looters in the end.

Detours and deliberations

An unscheduled trip to Cambridge last Friday. Made good use of the time in Central Library reading up on British history from World War I to World War II. Plenty of books too on Stanley Spencer but none on Graham Sutherland. Detours of this sort have been a feature of the tour as paintings, books and opportunities cross my path out of sequence.

Back to Sutherland today with books on my own shelves. I acquired these as part of an earlier study on a Cain and Abel by Keith Vaughan. Vaughan and Sutherland were both part of a group of British artists labelled 'Neo Romantics'. They were all caught up in World War II one way or another. Sutherland was a War Artist, Vaughan served with the non-combatant Pioneer Corps. After the war their art reflected their experiences for a time. Sutherland produced several religious paintings, Vaughan just the one.

Many of Sutherland's paintings were commissioned for churches and they can be seen as 'religious' in every sense. Vaughan's painting seems more to draw on a well known story to offer a crtique of the times in which the painter lived. Another case that shows how difficult it is to determine what a 'religious painting' is or should be. Answers on a postcard?

But what's it about?

Art, like music and literature, is never about just one thing. Even when the subject matter is clear - a crucifixion, for example - the artist's intention can be subversive or supportive to the theme and that can change everything. Often, although the theme may be clear - depiction of a bible story perhaps - it is impossible to know why the artist chose that particular subject for the work.

So it is with Degas' David and Goliath. The representation of the subject is straighforward and the title clear. But it's impossible to know why the artist chose to begin this work or why he never finished it. Was he simply looking for a good story or was there some deeper religious intent? Degas later went on to specialise in figure painting so was this just an early example of that interest? Are there any theological concerns we can draw out of the work? I haven't resolved this - some connections with French history are possible but so speculative that they seem no more than just grasping at straws.

Holman Hunt's The Shadow of Death presents the opposite problem. There is no shortage of information in multiple books on the Pre-Raphaelites and on Hunt himself. There's even a booklet in the Fitzwilliam library written by the artist at the time of the painting's first showing that explains his purpose. This is a painting with a clear didactic purpose and an underlying ideology that valorises the working man. The symbolism is detailed and was probably well understood by audiences in 1873, maybe even today, but what of it's ongoing message? What is it about in the early twenty-first century rather than in the the late nineteenth century?

Deferring these and other questions while research continues. Talking about the sabbatical project back at the Shared Church yesterday made it all seem a bit less abstract. Catching up with friends in so many places while on Tour this summer has been a real joy. Thanks to all for listening to my ramblings at various points.