Cathy's Art Diary

I had meant to visit the plinth every night this week however I was struck down with flu on Tuesday night and have been grounded at home since. I’ll try to do better this coming week. Anyway even on two visits I fitted in 3 plinthers. Monday night I saw Ruth M in the 5pm-6pm slot. She stood and write a note to Anthony Gormley. A nice gesture but lacking action. She handed over at 6pm to Terry A , a Buddhist with vertigo, who prayed. Tuesday night I passed through a bit later and saw Guy at 9pm. He was on a rowing machine raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support . At last action and a good cause.

The current use of the vacant plinth in Trafalgar Square is an art work by Antony Gormley which involves members of the public standing on the plinth for an hour and doing whatever they want. I had thought this was a great idea but am not yet convinced. I’ve only managed to pop along once but I can see it from the bus each morning. I find the people are dwarfed by the size of the plinth and are rater static. It seems to be such a good opportunity and yet many seem to be choosing to just stand or sit often with a cup of tea. A few have banners to advertise a cause but sadly its missing action. I did stay for the changing of the guard and it was interesting to see someone lifted by a fork life truck to step onto the plinth. However I won’t give up on this and plan to drop by any night when it isn’t raining and I’m heading home straight from work so watch this space. I’ll include my photos. The first photo is of Skinny-Marvin . Reviews Times Guardian Evening Standard

Exhibition of illustrations by Irish artist Harry Clarke for an edition of Hans Christian Andersen in 1916 at the National Gallery of Ireland . These works reminded me of Klimpt as they were very dense with pattern, placing highly decorative clothes, furniture and backgrounds against each other. The best example of this was “The Garden of Paradise”. The exhibition also included some Beardsley like pictures for “The Rape of the Lock”.

Exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland of 40 drawings from their collection spanning the 15th to the 19th centuries. The exhibition celebrated draftsmanship and examined the different reasons for doing drawings from studies for paintings to pictures in their own right. My favourite was copied from a fresco by Guilio Romano and was basically a study of horses bottoms although entitled “Apollo in his chariot”!