Part 1 - Personal reflections

I think that at this stage of the course it might be useful to record one of two observations as to how I have managed the process so far.

Part one of this course focused on Classical and Religious Art, a period I had previously paid little, if any attention to when visiting art galleries or museums.

It is always useful to remind oneself of what you hope to achieve by the end of the course, so reference to my learning objectives, as recorded in my Learning Log at the start of this course is required.

They are as follows

·         Have a better understanding of the relationship between styles and movements

·         Understand how and why styles and movements developed

·         Understand and appreciate the impact of styles and movements in the wider society

·         Learn how to look at art.

Full of enthusiasm I went on a mad scramble to visit art galleries and exhibitions and since September have visited

·         Tate Modern – Miro exhibition

·         Tate Britain – Romantics, John Martin and Barry Flanagan’s exhibitions

·         National Gallery – Dagas’s exhibition

·         Tate Liverpool – Magritte and the Alice in Wonderland exhibitions

·         Manchester Art Gallery – Ford Madox Brown exhibition

·         Lady Leaver Art Gallery – general exhibitions but used the time to focus on Grecian artefacts

·         Walker Art Gallery – general exhibition but focused on religious art.

·         British Museum – focused on Greek and roman artefacts.

·         Cautauld Gallery – general exhibition, but discovered  Wyndam Lewis an artist I have never come across before.

In addition I have read the following

·         A Crisis of Brilliance – (see previous blog entry)

·         Desperate Romantics - (see previous blog entry)

·         The Prometheans – (part way through)

and am developing a reading list (Christmas is coming so books galore ! ! !

Reflections

Therein lies the problem, I seem to have taken a scattergun approach to visiting galleries and museums as well as reading around the subject. The result has been a panic to try and meat the deadlines for the first assignment, having obtained one extension for this assignment already.

If I am honest I’m not sure that I have done justice to this section of the course as a result of all the visits I have undertaken and don’t think I have learnt as much as I should have done in respect of this period of art history.

However visiting the various exhibitions and reading a number of art books, and then recording my observations in my Learning Log has proved to be a useful and positive experience and should not be considered a waste of time.

I have had to reflect, analyse and the record, exercises that have helped with the exercises in respect of religious art and gothic architecture.

One of the challenges I have faced links I suppose to the issue of distance learning - not having the formal set up of lectures and tutorials there has been no one to ‘bounce ideas off’ or to share the learning with, or the deadlines that a more traditional way of teaching/learning provides.

I tend to be a slow starter and only really focus on the required task shortly prior to any deadline; this was always fine at work but I have found this approach not to be satisfactory for this course. Learning should be a pleasurable experience and not a chore whichI have run the risk of letting it become.

I did produce a ‘time table’ for this module which in part was useful for planning visits around family commitments but not quite as useful for the completion of such things as reports and annotations.

Learning

With reference to my learning objectives I would like to think that I have made some progress, not only with this module but in the wider field of art.

Surprisingly I find myself looking at buildings and noticing the architectural style and on occasions where styles seem to conflict, for example the area in Liverpool by St Georges Hall, many of the buildings, the museum, Walker Art Gallery and St Georges hall itself are all built in the classical style, even the Empire Theatre has Grecian columns but at one end of the conservation area we find the Great Western Hotel built in the French Renaissance style – it just seems so out of place !

St Georges Hall

Great Western Hotel

Whilst most of the reading I have done has not been directly related to this module, I have found it useful and one aspect that struck me was just how influential some characters were in the development if ‘movements’ e.g. Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites as well as ‘organisations’ e.g. The Royal Academy of Arts, the Slade School of Art etc.

This is also reflected in the module Classical and Religious Art, e.g. Pugin and gothic architecture, the monastic movement and the Craft Guilds of Florence etc.

I have begun to take more notice of art work I would have ordinarily walked by, for example whilst trying to identify a painting for the ‘developing your annotation’ exercise I spent some considerable time viewing the paintings on display prior to choosing Christ Discovered in the Temple by Simone Martini.

Pieta
Ercole de' Roberti
Oil and tempera on wood panel
Painted about 1482 - 1486
Walker Art Gallery Liverpool

Christ Discovered in the Temple
Simone Martini
Tempera  and gold leaf on a wood panel
Walker Art Gallery Liverpool

 

On the day it became a choice between Pieta by Ercole de’ Roberti  and Christ Discovered in the Temple – why one over the other, well I think it boiled down to the three different facial expressions, each seemed to be saying something different.

One thing that has struck me is the debt that we owe to business men during the Victorian period, not only for the funding of many great building but their passion for collecting art, Lord Leverhulm, William Roscoe and Andrew Barclay Walker – all Liverpool business men.

 However there may be ethical issues in relation to the source of art collectors wealth e.g. Liverpool and the slave trade, as well as the art collected e.g. classical artefacts in the British Museum – why a whole temple? What must Greek tourists think when they visit such museums?

Learning points for the next module;

·         Focus on OCA requirements.

·         Develop better time management systems.

·         A little and often

·         Plan visits more effectively – e.g. what can The Walker Art gallery offer for the next module.

·         Time spent preparing for visits will save time later.

·         Make notes as I read the various chapters of the set text.