National Gallery -Monochrome, Painting in B&W

And a sign with a  yellow background has impact 

I suppose I'm aware of some pressure to produce some of my photographic prints in Black and White - there's a certain feeling for it to be considered more 'serious'.

We don't

I had not really considered art (save for drawing) as having a Black and White dimension so was intrigued by the subject of this exhibition at The National Gallery.


First thing to say is that I enjoyed seeing a smaller exhibition that had some thought put into contextualising an interesting topic and where the curation was considered and appropriate - it was good for example to see some modern work in the National Gallery.

Live in a Black

  The exhibition was split over a number of rooms ( 8 I think) -the least satisfactory being the final one where we shown a work by Olafur Eliasson  - Room for One Colour - a neat idea but perhaps not totally successful - it was though the one room where photography was permitted.

Here Sodium Light was used to limit the colour Spectrum

Things I did like that were more modern though included Bridget Riley's Horizontal Vibration (1961) and Richter's Grey Mirror (765).

Also great to see Jasper Johns (a big fan of grey) again with his untitled work from 2007.

In Room 6 there was an interesting work called 'Joel' by Chuck Close showing how a photo had been translated by using a grid.


Also a detailed work by Celestin Joseph (Head of a Girl- 1887) showed how one artist had met head on (literally) the challenge that Photography had made to portraiture.

   

and White World

  In Room 5 (Painting and Printmaking) there some lovely works from the 18th Century including A Girl at a Window (1799) by Louis Leopold Boilly and  multiple versions of  'Back from the Market' (La Pourvoyeuse)  by Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin  (originally) and a Trick of the Eye reinterpretation by  Etienne Moulinneuf.


In Room 3 the paintings were in Grisaille (that is grey) and was struck by Maternity (1896)  from Eugene Carriere which had strong Photographic influences.

In Room 4  (more Tricks of the eye) there was an impressive Tour de Force from Titian - Portrait of a Lady (1510) where the artist answered the question face on regarding painting versus sculpture and even more convincing was Andrea Mantegna's 'The Introduction of the Cult of Cybele in Rome(1505).

All in all I found the exhibition a good way to spend a couple of hours

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