Week 2 Looking at Paintings (At Tate Britian)

Tate Britain

Tate Britain was the location for the second session of the CityLit run 'Looking at Paintings' course.

Susanna and the elders

Topic this week was 'History' and it's a big one (it's split across two weeks it's that big), we kicked off by looking at 'Susanna and the Elders' by Peter Lely.


The fact that Peter Lely's work is shown in Tate Britain is a  lesson in itself, work in Tate Britain is largely intended to be 'British art' Lely was Dutch by birth (and training) but spent most of his working life.

At the time of this work many works were drawn from Biblical stories as was Susanna and the Elders, this particular story has also a sexual element  which allows  some titillation - the subject was used more than once by a variety of artists, and there are more titillating versions.

It was also pointed out that the statue shown in the painting was that of the Manneken Pis which far from biblical was pretty much contemporaneous  with the work (this a common practice when travel to exotic places was less accessible was to transfer Biblical story settings in this way).

Strangely the animal in the background was intended to be a camel (many would not have seen this animal either). 

What I got from the 'lesson' was a greater involvement with paintings that I wasn't initially drawn too - this was certainly the case of  Joseph Highmore's sequence of paintings inspired by Pamela (by Samuel Richardson) .

As was the case from my earlier City Lit courses visiting galleries  with Leslie Primo  and James  Mansfield I'm realising that it's not about the number of works covered on visits but actively getting involved and looking.

The highlights of the works we looked at for me were the pre-Raphaelites particularly Christ in the House of his Parents by Sir John Everett Millais .

A Highlight for me