The Camden Town Nudes

This is a post which I wanted to write a long time back.

It has been in my mind ever since I went to "Walter Sickert : The Camden Town Nudes" at The Courtauld Gallery, London with my son and daughter Rajani last winter .There were about 25 works on show by Sicket-a name not very familier to our public.But Sicket was a prominent figure in the world of art in Britain at the turn of 19th century.He was counted amoung the impressionist painters of England, yet he was different from the run of the mill impressionists as we can see from the almost 'naturalistic' and dark works he is famous for.

His paintings look sinister, and have a disquiting feel about them.In these paintings he showed the seedy-shaby side of London life.He criticized van-Gogh's technic and Cezzane ,he said is over rated.So one can see how very different his ideas were.

He was the leader of the 'Camden Town Group' of young artists.These artists were more interested in capturing the ephemeral in urban life .They were not interested in painting'nature' or country side in brilliant colors on their canvas.

In early 19th century Sickert set up home in a run down part of the city, at Camden amoung the Irish laboring class( who were engaged in buiding the railway stations of King's Cross,St Pancras, and Euston) after coming back from Paris where he had worked with the old french master -Degas.It was here that he painted these nudes .The nudes of Sickert unlike Degas are hardly erotic or colorful.These were lower class women often prostitutes of the area.

It is curious that he had writen-- "Compositions consisting solely of nudes are usually (I have not forgotten certain exceptional flights of genius, such as the Rubens, in Munich, of the Descent into Hell) not only repellent,but slightly absurd. Even the picture or two (I think there are two) of the master Ingres, which is a conglomeration of nudes, has something absurd and repellent, a suggestion of a dish of macaroni, something wriggling and distasteful." :-)

Virginia Woolf who knew Sickert has written at lenght about this intrigueing artist.He was a' literary painter 'to her.An artist whose paintings had a tale to tell--straight forward.Sickert was one of the first artist to paint from photographs.

It is not very surprising ,given the narrative nature of "The Camden Town Nudes" and the timing of these works, they became associated with the famous "Ripper" case...who, murdered prostitutes---the Whitechapel murders.,made famous also by Patricia Cromwell's novel 'Portrait Of A Killer'. "I do believe hundered percent that the artist Walter Sickert was Jack The Ripper" Cromwell said!! Ok here are some of the works that were on display.

The first clockwise is 'Despair' followed by 'What shall we do for rent'or The Camden Town Murder,followed by 'The Rose Shoe', 'The La Hollandaise' ,then 'The Iron Bed Stead'. The painting down below is 'Ennui' a couple sitting facing the opposite directions...:-).

Here are a few of my sketches.You find a woman patient sitting alone in a hospital ward when all of a sudden the govt doctors went on a strike recently.They forcibly discharged all the patients and this lady had no where to go ---she had come for treatment from far off and had no one to go to nearby. Then you find a group of refugees --in their own home land -India. Then again a small boy waiting for his mother to finish cleaning the fish for his dinner in a Kerala costal village. and then you have my take on 'What shall we do for rent?' :-)).

Piccadilly.

Piccadilly underground station on a busy winter evening.

Piccadilly lit up by neon lights --a bigger attraction now than the good old statue of 'Eros'.

From London

From the National Gallery.

Turner's 'Blue Regi'

My visit to London coincided with an awsome exhibition of Turner water colors at Tate Britain."The Hockney on Turner".I spent many happy hours there looking at the beautiful works by one of the greatest artists of 20th century.Unforgetable ,once seen.

The Tate holds the largest collection of paintings and sketches by Turner.The most famous (and controversial) prize for young artists 'The Turner Prize' is also given by the Tate.

The above is one of his most captivating paintings.'The Blue Regi' recently acquired by the gallery by public donations.

The painting's beauty has to be seen and felt to believe.How extraordinarily skilful Turner was in putting on paper what he felt,in manipulating the colors and light on his canvas as he wished.

You see the mountain through a pearly morning mist .The simmering light of the morning star is captured so delicately and it reflects even more hauntingly over the waters of the lake.

Oh ,what a beauty!!

Tate Modern and "Shibboleth"

I spent many happy hours at Tate Modern this December.On an visit with Rajani I saw the latest installation by Doris Salcedo, a Colombian artist.Was rather surprised by the sight... a big long fracture on the floor of the 'turbine hall' and I was not the only one amazed.

It was an interesting sight .The artist wanted to take a swipe at Tate for turning a blind eye to the colonial art...exclusion of non European art from the commonality of the purpose of art.Tate Modern is exclusively European.

The word"Shibboleth" originates from Hebrew Bible-it seems, in the Book of Judges Chapter 12.

This word was used to distinguish one tribe from another - the defeated from the victorious for they could not pronounce the word correctly , they had no"sh"in their dialect.All those who could not pronounce the word were hunted down and exterminated.

Looks to me this installation has trivialised a weighty truth .

Scowling at the weather :).

Sktched the face of a girl I found on the open railway platform of Stratford on a very very cold windy evening.

Louise Bourgeose at the Tate.

I chanced to see the enormous spider installation by Louise Bourgeois being set in position on the banks of river Thames at Tate Modern ,for her retrospective there.I consider my self lucky to have been able to see this work by the famous artist who is now in her 95th year and still active and full of ideas.

It was a strange experience standing under this huge spider looking up at its underbelly with eggs in there.Overwhelming.Sinister and protective at the same time.Towering and yet appears fragile- looks ready to topple over.Like a mother ???

National Gallery

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1.Photo taken on my last visit to National Gallery in December.Many a happy hour I spent there with my children studying the paintings.

2. The view from the window of the restuarant at National Gallery where Rajeev and I had lunch.

Some thoughts on erotism and art.

The winner of CAA 's Distinguished Artist Award for Life Time Achievement for the year 2008 has been announced at New York.It goes to Sylvia Sleigh.Sylvia who must be more than 90 years of age now, is in the van-guard of the 'feminist art' world.

“I feel that my paintings stress the equality of men & women (women & men). To me, women were often portrayed as sex objects in humiliating poses. I wanted to give my perspective. I liked to portray both man and woman as intelligent and thoughtful people with dignity and humanism that emphasized love and joy.” Those are her touching words explaining her works.I am sure her work must have embarrassed the traditional gallery goer.But she broke new ground in painting those "creepy and erotic works ".

This reminds me that one of the works I missed at National Gallery ,London which I was able to visit many times during my stay there with my son this past December ,was "Rokeby Venus" by Diego Velazquez.It had been sent to some other gallary for exhibition.This is one of Velazquez's last works and his only surviving female nude(thanks to Spanist inquisition).He is said to have used only 3 colors to paint this picture of Venus with her face reflected in the mirror held by Cupid .

If Sylvia Sliegh expressed her indignation at painting female bodies as erotic objects in humiliating poses , by painting men in the same style ; in 1914 Suffragette Mary Richardson attacked "Rokeby Venus' with a meat cleaver at National Gallery.She made 7 slashes on the canvas which was repaired. "I have tried to destroy the picture of most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against Govt destroying Mrs Pankhurst ,who is the most beautiful charecter in modern history" she said.She did not like the way "men visitors gaped at that painting all day long"she said.

Has time changed the character of the gallery visiting males so much or was Mary Richardson over reacting even then, for I did not find "gaping" males thronging infront of nude female paintings when I was there. :). Even infront of portrait paintings of very honest nature by modern artists like Lucian Freud there were no idle oglers.

I have taken the photo of Sylvia Sleigh 's 'Turkish Bath ' from the website "Feminist Art In North America and Great Britain"

The exraordinarily sensuous female "Turkish Bathers"is by Dominique Ingres.It can be seen at Loure.