LONDON ART IN A RUSH Beatriz Serrano Yebra
T H E N AT I O N A L G A L L E RY V i n c e n t v a n G o g h 7 D i e g o Ve l รก z q u e z 9
THE BRITISH MUSEUM 11 The Rosetta Stone Mummy of Katebet
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TAT E B R I TA I N
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J. M. W. Turner 19 John William Waterhouse
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THE NATIONAL GALLERY Houses one of the greatest collections of paintings in the world
London Art in a Rush
Sunflowers
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Beatriz Serrano Yebra
Vincent van Gogh This is one of four paintings of sunflowers dating from August and September 1888. Van Gogh intended to decorate Gauguin’s room with these paintings in the so-called Yellow House that he rented in Arles in the South of France. He and Gauguin worked there together between October and December 1888. Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in August 1888, ‘I am hard at it, painting with the enthusiasm of a Marseillais eating bouillabaisse, which won’t surprise you when you know that what I’m at is the painting of some sunflowers. If I carry out this idea there will be a dozen panels. So the whole thing will be a symphony in blue and yellow. I am working at it every morning from sunrise on, for the flowers fade so quickly. I am now on the fourth picture of sunflowers. This fourth one is a bunch of 14 flowers ... it gives a singular effect.’ The dying flowers are built up with thick brushstrokes (impasto). The impasto evokes the texture of the seed-heads. Van Gogh produced a replica of this painting in January 1889, and perhaps another one later in the year. The various versions and replicas remain much debated among Van Gogh scholars. click here for more information
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London Art in a Rush
The Rokeby Venus
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Beatriz Serrano Yebra
Diego Velázquez This is the only surviving example of a female nude by Velázquez. The subject was rare in Spain because it met with the disapproval of the Church. Venus, the goddess of Love, was the most beautiful of the goddesses, and was regarded as a personification of female beauty. She is shown here with her son Cupid, who holds up a mirror for her to look both at herself and at the viewer. ‘The Rokeby Venus’ is first recorded in June 1651 in the collection of the Marqués del Carpio, son of the First Minister of Spain. It was probably made for the Marqués and was presumably displayed privately, thus avoiding the censure of the Spanish Inquisition. In the Carpio collection, Velázquez’s painting was paired with a 16th-century Venetian picture of a naked nymph in a landscape seen from the front. The painting is known as ‘The Rokeby Venus’ because it was in the Morritt Collection at Rokeby Park, now in County Durham, before its acquisition by the Gallery. click here for more information
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THE BRITISH MUSEUM Dedicated to human history, art and culture, is free to all visitors
London Art in a Rush
The Rosetta Stone
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Beatriz Serrano Yebra
The Rosetta Stone A valuable key to the decipherment of hieroglyphs, the inscription on the Rosetta Stone is a decree passed by a council of priests. It is one of a series that affirm the royal cult of the 13-year-old Ptolemy V on the first anniversary of his coronation. Thomas Young, an English physicist, was the first to show that some of the hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone wrote the sounds of a royal name, that of Ptolemy. The French scholar Jean-François Champollion then realized that hieroglyphs recorded the sound of the Egyptian language and laid the foundations of our knowledge of ancient Egyptian language and culture. The Rosetta Stone has been exhibited in the British Museum since 1802, with only one break. Towards the end of the First World War, in 1917, when the Museum was concerned about heavy bombing in London, they moved it to safety along with other, portable, ‘important’ objects. The Rosetta Stone spent the next two years in a station on the Postal Tube Railway 50 feet below the ground at Holborn. click here for more information
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London Art in a Rush
Mummy of Katebet
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Beatriz Serrano Yebra
Mummy of Katebet This mummy is that of an old woman who was a Chantress of Amun, the ‘King of the Gods’. As a holder of this title, she would have sung and performed music during the rituals that were performed in the temples. She was called Katebet and her preserved body is wrapped within layers of cloth. The painted cartonnage mummy-mask covering her head has a gilded face and shows her wearing an elaborate wig and white earrings. Her crossed hands wear real rings. After death, the body of a person of high rank would have been washed and the internal organs removed. After the body had been dried, using natron salt, the area where the organs had been would be packed with wood shavings. Next the skin was coated in resin, and then the body was wrapped in strips of linen. It was placed in a coffin, ready for its long journey to the afterlife. Next the skin was coated in resin, and then the body was wrapped in strips of linen. It was placed in a coffin, ready for its long journey to the afterlife. click here for more information
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TATE BRITAIN The home of British art from 1500 to the present day
London Art in a Rush
Rough Sea
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Beatriz Serrano Yebra
J. M. W. Turner Tate Britain is home to the largest collection of works by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851). A master of history, landscape and marine painting, he challenged the style of the old masters, trailblazing in technique and subject matter. Described as the ‘father of modern art’ by John Ruskin, Turner often shocked his contemporaries with his loose brushwork and vibrant colour palette while portraying the development of the modern world unlike any other artist at the time. It is no wonder that Turner became the most celebrated painter in England and that over one hundred and fifty years later, we celebrate contemporary artists of the same innovating spirit through the aptly named Turner Prize.
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London Art in a Rush
The Lady of Shalott
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Beatriz Serrano Yebra
John William Waterhouse John William Waterhouse was an English painter known for working in the Pre-Raphaelite style. He worked several decades after the breakup of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which had seen its heyday in the mid-nineteenth century, leading to his sobriquet “the modern Pre-Raphaelite”. Borrowing stylistic influences not only from the earlier Pre-Raphaelites but also from his contemporaries, the Impressionists, his artworks were known for their depictions of women from both ancient Greek mythology and Arthurian legend. Born in Italy to English parents who were both painters, he later moved to London, where he enrolled in the Royal Academy of Art. He soon began exhibiting at their annual summer exhibitions, focusing on the creation of large canvas works depicting scenes from the daily life and mythology of ancient Greece. Although not as well known as earlier Pre-Raphaelite artists such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt, Waterhouse’s work is currently displayed at several major British art galleries, and the Royal Academy of Art organised a major retrospective of his work in 2009. click here for more information
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