Victorians decoded: Art and Telegraphy

Strange exhibition at the Guildhall Art Gallery looking at the effect on art of the coming of the Telegraph and the changes that made on Victorian art.

It marked the 150th anniversary of the first telegraph cable to be maid across the Atlantic and I rather enjoyed the section looking at this. I hadn’t realised the cable was made in Greenwich, near where I live. As the cable was laid across the ocean it was tested all the way. I was also fascinated by the company code books as telegrams could be read by strangers at various stages so firms moved into sending coded messages for confidentiality.

I had assumed the show would be full of art showing people reading telegrams or pictures of cabling work however instead it looked at how people thought in a different way with sections on distance, transmission, coding and resistance. There were lots lovely pictures of beaches, ocean and rocks which were meant to show how people were looking across the seas and how the world was becoming smaller. Transmission was shown by linked figures forming chains with the idea of information shared!

I’m sorry I just wasn’t buying into the idea that the telegraph had influenced any of this however it was a good excuse to show some lovely Victorian pictures which I’d never seen before. I loved a Tissot which was meant to show coded views across rooms however the man in the middle looked like he was looking at his mobile phone! How’s that for influence!

Closes on 22 January 2017

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thomas Becket: Murder and Making of a Saint

Image
Stunning exhibition at the British Museum on the life and afterlife of Thomas Becket. I studied Becket both at A Level and at university so I was really looking forward to this show and it did not disappoint. From walking in to see an old friend, the early Limoges casket showing the murder from the Victoria and Albert Museum, I was gripped. The show told the story well using fantastic objects and led you through his life, the murder, the political aftermath, his sainthood and miracles, and how Canterbury became a major pilgrimage site. It is hard to pick out the best objects as so many were wonderful. I loved that they had early copies of some of the five eyewitness accounts of the murder which made you fell you were almost touching the event. I liked the manuscript on his time in exile which was almost like a comic strip. How wonderful to get a 13th century font from Sweden which shows how far and how quickly the news that Henry II had integrated the murder spread. I think my...
Read more

Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year Exhibition 2019

Image
Delightful exhibition at Clarendon Fine Art showing pictures from the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year TV series. I had loved the series which had set nine artists, both professional and amateur, to paint one of three celebrities. It then had a semi-final and final with them all looking at one sitter and in the final they also took on a commission. I loved the way you watched a picture build and how some were then made or spoiled by one stroke of paint.   Finding these pictures I knew so well in the flesh was therefore fascinating. None of them disappointed. My favourite artist from the final, Tom Mead, works looked just as good in real life if not better as you could see the detail. The show included his impressive self-portrait which he submitted to enter the competition, a wonderful fragmented picture of his reflection in a mirror giving a sense of movement. I loved that it included a large version of him and a miniature. His commission for the final of Jazzie B...
Read more

The Renaissance Nude

Image
Beautiful exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at the nude in Renaissance art. The show was gently themed but mainly let the pictures speak for themselves. It began by looking at the subjects, both religious and secular, which include nude figures then examined techniques and models used in these works, finishing by looking at more personal pictures. This is a period I’ve studied a lot so there were a lot of old friends and it was quite fun predicting what might appear. There were a few surprises too such as the rather surprising drawing of the Ecstatic Christ. I liked the fact the show included lots of different art forms not just paintings including sculpture, etchings, drawings and illuminated manuscripts. There were some fascinating hangs to draw comparisons particularly two sets of pictures by Giovanni Bellini and Hand Memling from almost exactly the same date. These were shown back to back in a display cabinet down the middle of one room. My favourite work was ...
Read more