London: Sep 2: Tate Britain Part 2

On Wednesday, September 2, 2009, I left work intending to go to the V&A Museum but realized on the way there that I forgot my camera and so redirected myself to the Tate Britain (which prohibits photography, so my lack of a camera wasn't a negative). I finished exploring the Tate Britain this day (see earlier visit), completing the section on historic British art and going through the sections on modern and contemporary British art and, the part of the Tate Britain that I was most looking forward to, the Turner Galleries.

The Turner Galleries were pretty good. Although (not surprisingly) I didn't see anything I liked better than the paintings I know and love by him--those paintings I love are great and famous for a reason--, I enjoyed seeing the breadth of his work. He painted a variety of subjects I wasn't aware of, including scenes of the Thames, paintings of scenes from mythical stories, paintings of people (sometimes even large groups of them), and paintings of Italian landscapes. I noticed he painted buildings well. (I never knew.) In particular, I like his paintings of Venice, both his unfinished atmospheric ones and his finished, detailed ones of canals, boats, and buildings.

I also learned about Turner's technique, how his palette evolved over his lifetime, and what colors he selected for various countries he visited. I even learned he did watercolors in his early days (and saw some of them). In addition, one room showed how black and white prints of his paintings were distributed. (They didn't have copy machines at the time, let alone color ones.) I learned how closely Turner worked with etchers, artists in themselves in the same way that translators are, and the kind of feedback he gave them. He did his own etchings at times, although rarely; I saw one of his etchings and compared it with the ones etchers did with his guidance. In all, the visit to the galleries was mighty educational.

I enjoyed reading the story about Turner on the day he finishes his paintings (read the first paragraph). On so-called "vanishing day", Turner implicitly challenges and out-shines (figuratively and literally) the other painters.

Within the Turner galleries, I particularly liked the following:

• Sunrise, with a Boat between Headlands. (Though allegedly unfinished, I like it.)
• Norham Castle, Sunrise, also allegedly unfinished.
• Sunrise with Sea Monsters, also allegedly unfinished (notice a pattern?).
• Sun Setting over a Lake (actually finished).
• Ancient Rome; Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus and Caligula's Palace and Bridge (image elsewhere). I like the way you see the beams of light. (Sorry, they don't seem to be visible in these online copies.)

I have these comments about other places/pieces in the museum:

• I liked the room The Sublime in Crisis: Terror, Torment and Transcendence for its dark, epic paintings.
• Samuel Colman's The Temple of Flora is a crisp, yet surreal, nature scene.
• John Linnell's Harvest Home, Sunset: The Last Load's sky has a feeling of depth, though it's overly dramatic (given that I enjoyed dramatic paintings, that's a statement I don't make lightly).
• Bridget Riley creates abstract, geometric paintings. The more I browsed the modern art exhibits, the more I realized how much more I liked her pieces than any others.

For dinner, Di Yin and I went to Tooting, one of London's many Indian neighborhoods. It happens to be not far from our apartment (20 minutes by bus). We got to explore a bit of it, but the rain made us want to pick a restaurant quickly and we ended up in Lahore Karahi, the first bustling place we saw. I took pictures.