The Tate Britain is the older art gallery, dedicated to British art, more or less. It is somewhat to the south and away from the tourist ghetto around the Palaces, the Houses of Parliament and all that, on the other side of the home of MI-6, Thames House on Millbank Road. I realized that I had left my dwindling remaining supply of AA batteries on the bus to Brixton, and so had to interrupt my proceedings to buy more batteries. I had to walk all the way to Vauxhall Road and down that street to find a little grocery with an Indian proprietor to buy some batteries just to get me through the afternoon and evening.
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Outside the museum there were lots of fanciful critters such as the flying lion women. Anatomically remarkable with their milk glands located somewhere north of the clavicle and wings which could never hope to lift these flightless cat-women, at least on planet Earth. But this is taken most likely from antiquity. I saw something like it in the British Museum. I have to wonder, being of a biological turn of mind, what experiments in animal breeding might have produced them.
Brittania looms above it all, with her trident, symbolizing the close relationship of Britain with the sea, and with eyes the size of which are seldom seen this side of a Keane painting.
The Lion and the Unicorn are everywhere in the capitol, representing the Union of England and Scotland under James I in 1603, which also spawned the Union Jack.
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Perhaps most spectacular of all is a bronze sculpture showing a group of people having a very bad day with livestock. Barely had the farmer had time to get dressed for a day's work at the farm when he and his farm hand has to contend with this:
But enough of exteriors. Let's go inside.
I think this is truly a marvelous museum. I like the chronological arrangement of the galleries and I spent a pleasant afternoon looking around there.
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| An Allegory of Man (1596) |
This man certainly has a tough row to hoe. The dead hate him, his wife hates him, his boss is gunning for him, and so are his evil co-workers. When he dies and goes to heaven, there's Jesus waiting to brain him with a large piece of wood. The name of the painter is unknown but since the inscription is in English it is presumably a British painting.
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| Atkinson Grimshaw: Liverpool Quay by Moonlight 1886. |
I like this painting, a nice evocation of an evening. Grimshaw was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites and lived between 1836 and 1893. He specialized in cityscapes (2).
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| John Bettes- A man in a black cap 1545 John Bettes (active 1531-1570) was a contemporary of Hans Holbein, who is known for his portrait of Henry VIII. It is thought that the portrait is of one Edmund Butts. It is the best known painting by the artist (4). |
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| Emily Osborne- Nameless and Friendless (1857) . Emily Osborn lived from 1828-1925. She specialized in pictures of women in distress, like this one which tells the story of a woman trying to make a living by selling her paintings. This is one of her most famous paintings (1). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| Benjamin Haydon: Punch or May Day (1829) Benjamin Haydon (1786-1846) was a painter specializing in grand historical themes mainly. He gave lectures on art and was an influential artist in his day. Never financially well off, he found himself in debt and committed suicide in 1846 (3). This picture shows a Punch and Judy show on a busy thoroughfare. A lot is happening in this picture as one can see. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| The Cholmondeley Ladies circa 1600-1610. |
This odd painting seems to show twin sisters both who had children at about the same time. It was in the private collection of Thomas Cholmondeley. It bears the inscription "Two Ladies of the Cholmondeley Family, Who were born the same day, Married the same day, And brought to Bed the same day."(5).
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| Annie Swynnerton-Count Zouboff (1931) Annie Swynnerton (1844-1933) was a British Painter. Of the Count I don't find much. He may have been related to the Count Zouboff who was involved in the murder of the Emperor Paul I and the accession of Catherine the Great. This portrait seems to be a picture of a Russian emigre descendant after the revolution. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| Cornelius Johnson: Portraits of an unknown Gentleman and Lady (1629) |
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| Edward Hodges Baily- The First Duke of Wellington (1838-40) |
There are some remarkable sculptural pieces in the Tate Britain as well. Edward Hodges Baily (1788-1867) was one of the leading sculptors of his time. He sculpted the statue of Nelson at the top of Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square as well as some of the decoration of the Marble Arch in a corner of Hyde Park (7). Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington was a soldier who distinguished himself in the wars against Napoleon and elsewhere. Earning a dukedom he later served as leader of the Conservatives in Parliament and served twice as Prime Minister (6).
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| Hylas surprised by the Naiades (1837) by John Gibson |
John Gibson (1790-1866) was a Welsh sculptor who started as an apprenticed furniture maker but then saw wood carving and persuaded his master to allow him to transfer to wood carving instead. This lasted until he saw marble sculpture in progress, and he eventually got himself apprenticed in that trade. He was a neoclassical sculptor and went to Italy, where he spent most of the remainder of his career (9).
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| Snake Problems |
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| Sculpture of Boy (Bronze) |
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