Showing posts with label richard iii. Show all posts
Showing posts with label richard iii. Show all posts
Monday, April 4, 2016
National Portrait Gallery
Located close to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery in London offers a wonderful glimpse at the many people who influenced the development of Britain. From members of the royal family to historical kings and queens, the Portrait Gallery is not only a walk through English pictorial history, but the arrangement of newer paintings combined with older ones was a fresh and engaging curatorial choice. It was wonderful to spot well-known historical figures like Richard III, Henry VIII, and Winston Churchill. The differences of contemporary dress, hairstyles, and customs were wonderful to identify, but also the changes in artistic techniques of the individuals portrayed. I had a wonderful time seeing familiar faces and also learning more about British culture.
Monday, July 22, 2013
Richard and Lady Anne
My last blog was about venturing north to the Yale University Art Gallery, and this week I'd like to focus on a specific artwork that really caught my attention. Edwin Austin Abbey's Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and the Lady Anne (1896), was so visually powerful that it felt like my stomach was being pulled out and my eyes could not look at anything else.
Lady Anne is being untimely proposed to by Richard, during the funeral procession of her late husband who was king. Abbey's composition focuses not only on Anne's face, but on the point of the story, Richard's spindly offering of marriage, right after he murdered her husband with the very sword he is shown carrying. The most astonishing part of the actual painting was the evocative black veil that shrouds Lady Anne's bleak face. The contrasting red of hunch-backed Richard immediately made me uneasy.
Now I have to go read Richard III, because my senses have been so deeply effected by this single image. Perhaps, I could possibly be searching for the thought or emotion that moved Abbey to create such a painting?
The brilliance of art is being mentally available to have such opportunities inside art galleries or museums. Whatever Abbey may or may not have felt, it's hard for me to deny how much I was moved by this work. It also makes me thirsty for more experiences. Perhaps sometime you will find your way up to New Haven and discover Lady Anne?
Lady Anne is being untimely proposed to by Richard, during the funeral procession of her late husband who was king. Abbey's composition focuses not only on Anne's face, but on the point of the story, Richard's spindly offering of marriage, right after he murdered her husband with the very sword he is shown carrying. The most astonishing part of the actual painting was the evocative black veil that shrouds Lady Anne's bleak face. The contrasting red of hunch-backed Richard immediately made me uneasy.
Now I have to go read Richard III, because my senses have been so deeply effected by this single image. Perhaps, I could possibly be searching for the thought or emotion that moved Abbey to create such a painting?
The brilliance of art is being mentally available to have such opportunities inside art galleries or museums. Whatever Abbey may or may not have felt, it's hard for me to deny how much I was moved by this work. It also makes me thirsty for more experiences. Perhaps sometime you will find your way up to New Haven and discover Lady Anne?
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