Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Art Exhibition

Steve Beresford's going to send me the people's names in the Improvising Orchestra so I will wait until then to do the review.
Yesterday me and Caroline Coon went to the Wilhelm Hammershoi exhibition at the Royal Academy. Caroline had seen a picture of his and was intrigued to see more and she suggested that we meet up and have a proper look.
His paintings are completely inspiring- if i wrote about them they would sound boring, because they are grey, or shades of grey, and often of the same room, with two or three year gaps between them, and different sunshine. When there are people in them, it's often the back of the person, and there is hardly any detail and the rooms are empty. They are sort of full of what you don't see.
You realise that a lot is hidden; the exhibition is called 'the poetry of silence', and they are indeed very still paintings. But they often have a little touch of humour, almost to see if you notice it: a tiny streak of yellow on a bedstead, or a box on a shelf that is so mysterious that you are dying to know what's inside it.
One painting has one or two leaves from a plant that you can't see just poking in the side of the painting. In some paintings, the grey is blue-grey, and in othesr, it is green-grey.
The light parts of the paintings are incredibly bright- lots of them feature windowpanes, or panelled doors reflecting light at an angle.
In many ways they resemble etchings in their use of dark darks and light lights.
You see, I have gone there again in my head.
Yes, I really did like the exhibition. It made me want to be an artist again.
Thank you Caroline for taking me.

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