COMMENTARY: 'The Hireling Shepherd' by William Holman Hunt

Published: STUDENT DIRECT, 22nd September 2008

"Close Look"

This painting of Hunt’s, one of the major names in the pre-Raphaelite movement, always catches my eye twice. Something about it makes me need to examine the situation, work out what doesn’t sit right. Maybe it is the girl’s suspicious but sultry sideways glance. Maybe it is the bright, precise colours and lines of the assumably soft rural setting. Or it could be the fact that this painting has a story to tell of two people’s relationship; yet we don’t know what it is. Who are they? What are they saying to each other? Why does it feel tainted?

The answer, if there must be one, lies in the title. The Hireling Shepherd is a quote from Shakespeare’s King Lear, in which Edgar sings the tale of a Shepherd who neglects his duty and his sheep. In Hunt’s painting this is portrayed by a lamb wandering off unnoticed into a golden field, potentially ruining a farmer’s crop, while beauty, youth and desire distract the couple. The message of pastoral neglect and its consequences, takes on an extended social critique, when we look closer at the two sweethearts. The girl with her blood red skirt and forthright body language seems to be luring the man away from the right path of action. The apples on her lap, rotting, make her reminiscent of Eve tempting man to sin.

However the quite heavy moral message of this beautiful painting is not immediately obvious. At first we seem merely to be witnessing love. It is only on second glance that we see that this love sits inharmoniously with social expectations, duty and seemingly nature.

It is the sharpness with which Hunt portrays the landscape that empathises this moral. The focus brings out the harsh reality of the situation. The countryside is idyllic; the pool of water by the girl’s feet remains still, yet the image creates turmoil within the viewer; a sense of wrongdoing and future negative consequences.

It is a clever and expertly executed painting that everyone should look at.

'The Hireling Shepherd' by William Holman Hunt can be seen at Manchester Art Gallery.

COMMENTARY: 'The Storm' by William Etty

Published: STUDENT DIRECT, 15th September 2008 

"A Close Look at Artworks in Manchester: The Storm by William Etty (1829-30)"

I have always been fascinated by how painters manage to capture light and motion. Painters, such as Turner, whose work is full of nature’s ominous dangers, and weathers perilous forms, have always captivated me. It is for this reason that I love The Storm by William Etty. 

He manages to covey the pure terror and force of the tumulus waves at sea. Despite the boat taking up quite a large portion of the canvas, Etty has managed to convey it’s tiny scale in comparison to the vast ocean in which it floats; it is vulnerable and dwarfed by the wave that looms above the two figures, their sail expressing the fierceness of the wind. The painting has a dark undertone and a raw sexuality about it, the woman’s naked flesh glows in the night, stark white, while the rest of Etty’s palate is of warm earthy tones. 

Looking at it you feel haunted by the power of things outside your control, you feel the couples isolation, the motion of the rough water. It is a painting of raw experience, of fear.

'The Storm' by William Etty can be seen in the Main Collections of Manchester Art Gallery.

Link: http://year2008-2009.student-direct.co.uk/2008/09/close-look/#more-497

COMMENTARY: L.S Lowry, Selected Works

Published: MANCHESTER CONFIDENTIAL, 10th June 2008

Focus on Art: "Lowry: Is the Old Bugger Any Good?"

Artist: L S Lowry

Who's that?

You mean you live in the North and don't know? LS Lowry, born in 1887, a tall, suited, Lancashire man turned self taught artist has long been a household name. Often thought of as naive, his sentimental sketches and paintings depicting industrial working class landscapes and people brought him ridicule but also fame. He is now considered to be one of Britain's most popular and celebrated artists.

What and Where? Coming From the Mill, The Lowry
Date: 1930


Quintessentially Lowry?

Yes indeed. Here we have one of those industrial scenes the punters love so much. 'Coming from the Mill' depicts closing time at the factories, workers stream out of the gates on to the street and make their way home. The people are puppet like, no expression or individual characteristics bar the different colours of their clothes. Caps and red or dark green jackets throng the crowd. Their feet clad in oversized black boots. This should make the crowd seem like a mass, an organism of 'the people', yet it does not. In this painting, as with most of Lowry's, every figure seems to be alone. Lowry shows us, through his own experience of solitude, that there is emptiness in multitude.

Looking at 'Coming from the Mill' is like creating a story inside your head. Each individual can be taken, their life and activities constructed. In the right bottom corner a horse rears, throwing back the carriage driver in surprise. Two children stand side by side behind a fence, left out and observing others at play. While on the far left someone leans out of a window to talk to a mother below, a baby slung across her back. These characters turn into real people; they and the scene become symbolic of a nostalgic past that viewers remember knowing.

L S Lowry developed a very personal and stylised technique. The composition of 'Coming from the Mill' is linear and graphic, the oil paint thick and his colour palette limited. The buildings are flat, with simplistic white curtains and emotive, sombre ochre and red walls; their diluted and un-solid colour reflects the lack of money within. The buildings create a grid on the canvas and trap the wandering figures within the white roads. This painting is not one of freedom, but necessity and labour. The figures are hunched, head down and exhausted.

What and Where? Man with Red Eyes, The Lowry
Date 1938

Is it Lowry?

Well sort of. 'Man with Red Eyes' is a shocking and disturbing image, and a far cry from the heavily populated and distant figures in 'Coming from the Mill'. A man, worn and angry, stares directly out of the canvas, his large eyes burning with a sore red. The directness and raw emotion of his look arrests you.

Though a composite image, 'Man with Red Eyes' was started as a self-portrait. It was, as Lowry explained, him 'letting off steam'. For eight years Lowry had nursed his bed-ridden mother, simultaneously holding down a full time job and painting in the early hours of the morning. This painting he made right before her death, at a time when he felt frayed and on the brink of breaking. It's not Lowry, but the expression of his internal turmoil.

Lowry depicts this anonymous man with stark and grotesque detail. Small dark hairs protrude from his ears; the skin under his eyes is a heavy and dull grey. This man personifies not only Lowry's pain and grief at the time of its composition, but also that of the downtrodden worker, driven and laden by economic necessity. His brow is deeply furrowed, the unshaven stubble twinged with steel grey.

The man, hard and stern, also appears as though completely naked. He is bare and vulnerable in his anger. The red colour of his eyes, nose and scarf form a centre to the canvas. The scarf is tight as if slightly strangling him, while the overly large black cloak envelops him, overcomes his body, curving his shoulders, repressive. When asked about this painting, Lowry replied, "It frightens me".

Opinions…

On Lowry differ greatly. Many find his work sentimental, the language he speaks too simplistic. Looking at both paintings the subject does not feel real, but distanced. This is probably because Lowry did not depict real places or people. They are composite images, or as Lowry described them 'dreamscapes', created and imagined as he sat, tweed suited, in an armchair before his easel. Hence his rather ambiguous titles such as 'A Lancashire Town'. This makes his work surreal, but also at times frustrating and annoyingly innocent.

Yet people identify with them and come in their hordes to see them. The Royal Academy retrospective exhibition of his works in 1976 broke all records of attendance for a twentieth century artist. His mill scenes and portraits convey a uniquely English sentiment, very much of the industrial period. The landscapes are typical, full of shared associations. The boots and caps, smoke filled skylines and thronging crowds surging from the factories feel familiar.

Maybe the men do look like sticks, the whole painting somewhat cartoonish. Maybe, the industrial subject does not seem gritty enough, the white pavements too unbelievable. Maybe as comedian Harry Hill tells us, you could replicate it age 10. But maybe that's not the point.

L S Lowry was always aware that every painting he did was an extension of himself. He was a man drawn, not to document correctly what was in front of the work, but to show what he saw through himself, his feelings. His paintings were his indulgence, so why should they not be our indulgence too? Buy a poster for your living room, hallway and bathroom, as two loudly indecisive ladies were doing in the gift shop.

Both these works can be viewed in the Lowry, The Quays. 0870 1112020 www.thelowry.com

Link: http://www.manchesterconfidential.co.uk/Culture/Architecture/Lowry-is-the-old-bugger-any-good

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COMMENTARY: 'Zephyr' by Bridget Riley

Commissioned (Unpublished due to Copyright Issues): Manchester Confidential, April 2008

What and Where: Zephyr at the Manchester Art Gallery

Date: 1976

Artist: Bridget Riley 

Who’s she?

Named the ‘math book muse’, Bridget Riley is one of Britain’s most famous artists. Born 1931, Riley was a pioneering artist in the Op Art movement of the swinging 60’s. Op Art moved away from traditional forms of representation and focused, not on presenting the subject as it was to a passive viewer, but in creating a thought process with the audience through non-representational geometrical shapes and patterns. Originally from London, but growing up in Cornwall, Riley’s work is heavily influenced by her experiences of nature as a child, especially her more organic wave pieces to which Zephyr belongs.

Zephyr, what on earth is that?

The Greek God of the West wind. Zephyr was the wind of the coming spring and therefore rather a fertile and promiscuous fellow. Notorious for killing Hyacinth out of mad jealousy, when the beautiful and sporting Spartan prince dismissed him and instead chose Apollo for his lover. Zephyr was also reported to have had several wives, including his sister Iris and the Goddess Chloris, whom he married after first raping her. Lovely chap.

Often depicted as a personified winged young man in Classical and Renaissance art, including Botticelli’s famous painting ‘La Primavera’, Bridget Riley’s depiction is ever so slightly more abstract.

Tell me more.

Zephyr, consisting solely of hard lined, ordered waves and painted impeccably with acrylic, is a beautiful and calm piece to behold. The pale matt blue, pink and green curved lines interplay with each other to create a serene composition, (I think here Riley is showing us the wind God at his less rampageous and more gentle breeze blowing behaviour). What makes the piece so interesting is that Riley subject is something normally not visible to the human eye. Wind, like a ghost, is only seen through its impressions on physical objects – trees moving, plastic bags blown down the street; yet her totally abstract image expresses what it is to experience this. It feels like a gentle summer breeze. Looking at the canvas the influence of nature is evident; water, summer and sunlight are all present. The colours and evocative curves emit a warm light, which holds emotional resonance and creates a sense of recognition within the viewer.

That’s odd, why’s it moving?

If you stand a few metres from Riley’s work, the lines and colours merge and pulse before your eyes, like ripples on water. The paint seems to come to life, animated and writhing. This happens because the calculations of space between the lines and curves on the canvas, work to create optical illusions in the eye’s retina. This creates a tension within the piece, the movements of the lines are rhythmical and suggest a continuous movement even once you have walked away – a beating heart. This results in the work of art becoming the space in between the painting and the viewer, the scientific and visual process of optical phenomena, which bestows a visible role and partnership between the painting and the audience. In order for the artwork to take effect, the viewer is needed.

What does it all mean?

Zephyr turns thought in to physicality. Riley produces a physical sensation through her work. It makes your perception change and your body sway with unease. As with other pieces of optical art, Zephyr challenges our way of knowing. It makes us perceive and feel movement and colours that aren’t actually there or happening. The paint and canvas are still, the colours clearly different when standing before it. As Bridget Riley herself explains, her work creates ’recognition of the sensation without the actual incident which prompted it’. Along with her other work, Zephyr attempts to dissect the visual experience, the process of observation.

Standing before this piece in the Manchester Art Gallery is a disorientating and curious experience not to be missed. Bridget Riley plays with the aesthetic of illusion to startling effect.

COMMENTARY: 'Manfred on the Jungfrau' by Ford Maddox Brown (1840-61)

Published: STUDENT DIRECT, April 2008

Ford Maddox Brown was one the most important influences in the Pre Raphaelite movement. It was his accuracy in portraying the physical elements and subjects of his work, as well as the bold use of colour he employed, that captivated artists such as Rossetti, Hunt and Millais and that can be seen beautifully in ‘Manfred on The Jungfrau’.

The painting depicts the momentous scene of Byron’s poem Manfred, in which a hunter comes across the man in question, who tortured by his incestuous relationship with his sister, over education and explorations into dark magic, decides to throw himself off the mountain peak and end his life:

My bones had then been quiet in their depth;
They had not then been strewn upon the rocks
For the wind's pastime-- as thus-- thus they shall be-- In this one plunge.-- Farewell, ye opening heavens!
Look not upon me thus reproachfully--Ye were not meant for me-- Earth! take these atoms!

Thus the painting depicts a terrifying moment of tension and fate, the conclusion of which we are unaware of unless we read the poem. Manfred stands on the very edge of the icy cliff, inches away from sure death. Brown's work captures this single moment beautifully, and thus hits the viewer with striking force. Far away on the horizon we see the outline of a Cathedral city, the location and source of all Manfred's troubles. It hovers in mist, indefinite and mystical. A large contrast to the desolate surroundings we see in the foreground, which are depicted by Brown in clearly defined colours and lines. It is here, in natures most harsh and unforgiving terrain, where the weight of Manfred's actions can utterly consume him.

The painting is said to be the first Brown did in the open air, a method he would use from then on. This results in the wonderful bright light the painting exudes. The paleness of the sky seems to soar above you, while the whiteness of the snowy summit emphasises the daunting height at which Manfred stands.

Brown’s contrasting portrayal of the two characters, Manfred and the Chamois Hunter, may also, as critic Kenneth Bendiner notes, suggest a ‘sympathetic attention to the lower classes’ (The Art of Ford Maddox Brown, 1998, p.99). The spatial, atmospheric and dramatic relations between the two characters are stunning in their explanation of the poem. Manfred, the aristocratic, is hysterical and at odds with his surroundings. The extreme red of his dress emphasising the passionate struggle and fear that surges within his mind. His knees bend at the sight receding below him, while he claws his hair like a madman. The hunter, whose vermilion trousers balance the paintings composition, is on the other hand dressed in furs suitable for the wintry conditions. He appears calm and collected, not wanting to surprise the man before him and as a result watch him fall to his death. He is the heroic rescuer while Manfred is the ruined man. It shows the viewer the rational versus the chaotic and leaves us in no doubt of which is the better.

When you stand before the painting, you sense the vertigo Manfred must feel when he states: ‘I am giddy’. Your stomach surges with fear that he might fall, one moment of unbalance is all it would take. You yearn to know if the hunter will reach him in time. To go away reassured. Such is the skill with which Brown has interpreted Byron’s words and rendered the scene. The alarm it instills continues even once you have left the Manchester Art Gallery.

COMMENTARY: 'Autumn Leaves' by John Everett Millais (1856)

Published: STUDENT DIRECT, April 2008

In continuation from last weeks look at Ford Maddox Brown, the focus now falls on John Everett Millais, one of the three main figureheads of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and an artist greatly influenced by the work of Brown.

Millais was an astonishingly talented and early blooming painter, joining the Royal Academy when he was just ten years of age. Known for having an amazing visual memory, as well as hand and eye skill far above the average, his works seem to offer a completeness of composition and style not often found. He is said to have commented on his method: ‘I have painted every touch in my head, as it were, long ago, and have now only to transfer it to canvas’ (Raymond Watkinson, Pre-Raphaelite Art and Design, p.46), which is an ability that I at least find incredibly difficult to comprehend.

Autumn Leaves, which was placed within the Royal Academy exhibition the year it was painted, portrays an idyllic and inviting image. Four young girls, all still within childhood, clear the expanse of grass behind them from the fallen leaves. Their similarity in appearance and demeanour suggest that they are sisters, cherub like and innocent. Their dresses suggest poverty rather than opulence. The sky is bright and clear, glowing a magnificent gold over them and lighting their hair like halos. The darkness of the background makes the air seem as crisp as the dried leaves, which you can literally hear crunching under the girl’s feet when you stand before the painting. It is serene and still, a frozen moment, the leaves falling from the eldest girls hands poised mid air, in the act of floating through the mist.

It is a painting seeped in mortality and reflection. The setting sun and dying leaves suggest the passing of time, of closure and death. This is event more apparent with their juxtaposition to the youth and beauty of the four girls, which contrasts to the decay around them. It is almost as if they are the spring that is born out of winter, bursting anew from the bonfire they are building. The apple in the youngest girls hand, holds connotations of the apple from the Garden of Eden, and the cause of original sin; the sin that brought us our mortality. It tells us that the girls are fated to die just like the leaves, and reminds us that we too will all come to an end.

As an artwork it is slightly different to the typical Pre-Raphaelite style, the brushwork is broader and softer rather than hard and pointed. This works perfectly, however, with the autumn dusk, glowing light and silence of the rural setting. The colours, all harmoniously warm, contrast to the harsh and bright colours of Millais earlier work.

As was the aim of the Pre-Raphaelites, Millais projects a meticulously correct visual account of the subject and setting. Each element is painstakingly depicted - the fabric of the young girls dresses, the heaviness of their skirts, the different textures of their hair. The rural setting is shown in intricate detail; each leaf seems individual. Millais’s documentation of his subject feels as immediate as a photograph, despite the time and effort they must have taken to achieve. Autumn Leaves is a beautiful and moving image to observe.

COMMENTARY: ‘Portrait of Henrietta Moraes on a Blue Couch' by Francis Bacon (1965)

Published: STUDENT DIRECT, February 2008

This painting by Francis Bacon is made precisely of what gave the English artist his international reputation in the 1950’s. It’s style and distortion of the subject matter, which is deeply immersed in expressionism, creates a haunting and disturbing image. Indeed, Bacon once said that he created his paintings from photographs because of ‘the injury I do to them in my work’.

It should be noted that Francis Bacon never wanted us to view his paintings as story-telling, instead he wanted his art to portray ‘the story and the sensation cut down to its most elemental state’ (John Russell Francis Bacon, p.122). If you stand before the ‘Portrait of Henrietta Moraes on a Blue Couch’, located in the Manchester Art Gallery, you see that this is exactly what Bacon achieves. His terrible, but at the same time beautiful, portrayal of the female form exposes the interior and bare elements of humanity. What we see in Bacon’s work is not necessarily how a human body appears, but more how it feels, how it is carried, the softness of its skin, the weight of its meat and the fluidity of its movements and behavior.

As in many of Bacon’s paintings, Henrietta Moraes is shown as an isolated figure, alone in a dark room. You are instantly struck by the violence with which he portrays the human body; his thickly smeared oil paint conveys energetically the curves and movements of naked flesh. However, interestingly, the point of focus in this painting is not the writhing and morphed body of Henrietta, but the bright yellow handle. Like a guide it leads the viewer to the open door in the contrasting linear background, which offers escape from the horror before you. Additionally the blue couch seems alive and organic, curving like a surging dark wave about to carry and envelope her out of the picture in to the deep fiery red beyond.

The distinct left foot and sensual leg of Henrietta carries the eye up the body to her even further warped face. Standing out of the strokes and twists of anguish, the face seems to portray again this sense of innermost nature. Her pronounced eye is closed as if peacefully asleep, contradicting the rest of her body. This tells us that the distress portrayed by Bacon’s brush is possibly metaphorical. The intensity of individualism shown in this detail produces vitality within Bacon’s portraiture and shows that his distortion does nothing to damage the subject’s identity.

Instead the pictures lack of clarity seems to send us straight into Henrietta’s self, where there is no room for beauty or ugliness. It shows the contrast between the, often serene, outward appearance of humanity and the motions and unrest that continually take place within the human body and brain. Bacon portrays the darker aspects that reside in everyone and the chance to confront this, especially considering that Bacon destroyed much of his work, should not be missed.

COMMENTARY: 'Sappho' by Charles August Mengin (1877)

Published: STUDENT DIRECT, February 2008  

If you enter the first floor of the Manchester Art Gallery, you will soon find yourself facing the dark and mysterious painting of Sappho by Charles-August Mengin. Though Mengin has never been a particularly well-known artist, the woman he depicts is strikingly enigmatic.

Sappho, a Greek female poet who lived around 600BC, is widely recognized as the earliest surviving female writer of the west. Her poems of love, loss and reflection have given her, as Ellen Green tells us, ‘an intense and lasting presence on western imagination'; she is an almost mythic figure within the arts.

Mengin shows us Sappho alone and fierce, standing on precarious rocks. We are shown the moment just prior to throwing herself into the sea out of desperate and unrequited love for Phaon, an old ferry man, who the Goddess Aphrodite turned in to youth so beautiful and desirable, that she herself fell madly in love with him. 

This myth of passion and tragedy is the scene that Mengin portrays to us in his painting. A tale that can be sourced to Menander’s play ‘The Leukadia’ and the lines:

Where they say that Sappho was the first
Hunting down the proud Phaon
To throw herself, in her goading desire, from the rock
That shines from afar

Looking at the image, you are struck by the burning intensity that seems to emit from Sappho and her surroundings. Very dissimilar from the cupid like young women who fill the other paintings in the room, Sappho is intimidating and strong. Her hair, dark and long, flows into the black cloth, which transparent clings to her sensual body. As Simon Goldhill, states she is ‘not the Greece of light and purity, sunshine and rationality, but the physical embodiment of a dangerous passion’. 

The grey sea and clouded sky have an ominous tone, which along with the wind, seem to represent her emotional turmoil. In a highly sexual and daring act, Mengin has exposed her breasts and shoulders, the clear whiteness of her skin contrasting to the rest of the canvas and making them an unavoidable focal point. Her breasts seem to illuminate her face, as if they show us the burning love that we would be able to see in her down cast eyes. 

This woman is shown, without doubt, to be a sexual being. The colour of her robes and self-possessed demeanor suggest experience, rather than innocence. Something which is enhanced by her imminent act of jumping or falling into an abyss, which was seen in the 1800’s to represent falling into a swoon or the experience of sexual relief.

In many ways this is a painting by and for men, the pornographic elements of the image being unavoidable. We are given a direct invitation to take pleasure in her exposed body, the classical references legitimizing her nakedness. However the other side of this image presents a historically important woman, intelligent, independent and proud of her female desire.

The force that emits from Mengin’s Sappho makes it a great shame that the painting never entered mainstream culture, and with this in mind, I strongly recommend those inclined to go and experience its mystery for themselves.

'Sappho' by Charles August Mengin can be seen at Manchester Art Gallery.