Isabella Daly 225075 – New College Swindon 66528
Critical & Contextual Studies A2 Exam Question – Sun Part 5
National Gallery Room Layout discussion:Having now completed all the promotional material that I will use for my exhibition, I now need to start considering that actual layout that I will use for the space of the gallery itself. Like with all my promotional work, before I jumped straight into designing, I took some time to look at pre-existing work to draw inspiration from to enable me on having a better understanding of what I want to achieve. So naturally I applied the same method of working here and before even thinking about my own personal layout, I decided to look at some images take from inside the National Gallery. On this slide we see the first images that I looked at where with regards to structure, I’m actually very fond of the room with the inclusion in the architecture of the repeated archways used to go into the different rooms as well as the dark teal colour that has been used for the walls that contrasts pleasantly with the warm reddish/orange toned wood floor and bbordering. Although these both work as warm comforting colours, they’re also quite heavy and dark but as a result of the massive sky-light that allows vast amounts of light to be present within the room, it lifts this tensions and actually works with these colours to make the room an enticing place to go into. Therefore it makes sense to assume that without this massive window, the room most definitely would not feel as comfortable as well as meaning you definitely wouldn’t be able to view the work in it’s ‘best possible light’ which would pretty much defeat the soul purpose of wanting to go to a gallery and see the artwork in the flesh.
With regards to think about the possibility of another wall colour being used, from looking at this image and envisioning it other colours it’s given me thoughts to consider for my own personal wall colour choice. For example, if the walls were white/cream, I feel they wouldn’t give nearly as a formal mood to the room which given it’s importance and grandeur just wouldn’t be suitable, I fear it would start to normalise some of the works. That being said, if the walls were far brighter bolder colours they would instead act as being far too distracting as well as once again lowering the sophistication levels with the probable chance of also posing as somewhat of an eye saw to be in therefore reducing the desirability to gaze at the paintings the room holds. Alongside this, when it comes to the actual paintings themselves, I’m not keen on the placement and positioning of them. Even though there are a number of smaller paintings with a big wall space that needs to be filled, I feel like this particular layout has lead to the room being over cluttered with paintings to the extent where your eye darts around, desperately trying to look at each and every piece for fear of missing out on something but in reality because of this the chances of you overlooking something important/interesting are increased quite drastically. This fact applies even more so given the work that I’ve chosen to look at for my exhibition which are based around the movement of aestheticism where the idea of being high quality appearance and beauty are the key aspects meaning that the attenders of my exhibition so be given the time to truly embrace and understand the level of skill and effect of beauty that the paintings I have chosen poses. It’s important for my viewer to feel comfortable in their setting, that they can go about the walk around at their own pace, allowing them to fully make the most out of my exhibition.
On this slide is another image from a different room inside The National Gallery and it’s fair to say that even from a first glance, I prefer this room a lot more to the previous for some different reasons. While I did speak before about liking the colour scheme and the teal walls, in comparison to this image I found the specific teal that they used to be a very saturated tone when put against this red which, to me, seems far more neutral and calming that results in a more relaxed vibe being given off while still be highly sophisticated (which I feel is also contributed to by the subtle patterning on the wall paper). Although, I feel that what colour you Specifically choose to have the walls also greatly depends on the colour schemes of the chosen works within the room, for example, the colours in the previous paintings were all quite deep and dark so therefore by having the highly saturated coloured wall it almost brings out the colours within the painting more! Whereas in this second image we can see that the paintings themselves are completed in warmer and softer tones where once again the wall then helps to elevates this feeling further create more of positively impacting environment to look at the work in for the viewer. A note to definitely take from this is to have a look at all the pieces of work that I will be exhibiting and to pick a colour for the wall the helps to improve the experience within the space and not the opposite. As for the room itself, I love how big and spacious it is, the positive effects of this to me are very preveelant at working to create a far more pleasant atmosphere to be in as well as reducing the feeling of needing to rush around the exhibition due to it being so small/crammed with numerous paintings. The benefit of having such a big with the paintings quite considerably spaced apart also lowers down the anxiety of feeling like you’re standing infant of a piece for too long and blocking others vision rather it’s promoting the idea of taking their time looking at each piece until they feel as though they have looked upon the piece in its entirety. The use of the benches also adds to this nicely and works to actually prompt the viewer into taking a seat and having a thoughtful moment.
Something else to mention about the layout is although the space is fairly small, I’ve made 4. sure to incorporate the use of windows to 5. From taking a moment to look inside a couple ensure that at least some natural light is 3. of the rooms for the national gallery, it’s now being spread throughout the gallery to help 6. time for me to take the final step of my project show off the paintings even more so as well and actually design the layout of how my own as make the room more enticing. Although 7. exhibition will look. From what I’ve learned you can’t see here, in my design for the from my previous slides on gallery layouts is exhibition I would also prefer to have the use that I don’t want mine to be too complex but of sky lights as well to help bring an even rather more of a simple and smoothly moving one that allows for lighter and brighter air to the room without those who are attending to be gently taken around each painting being artificial. Alongside this you can also where their focus can lie for the most part, on the paintings see that I’ve included some form of seating 2. themselves rather than making their way more of a complex layout within the bigger portion of the gallery to 1. that would otherwise pose as a distraction. encourage viewers to not rush round and leave as soon as possibly but to actually sit To start of I decided to first create a birds-eye view of the exhibition down and take some time to absorob the space to gain an understanding for the order and layout that I will beauty that’s infront of them which is choose to have for my paintings. As you can see here I’ve chosen particularly relevant to my exhibition given for an upside down L sort of shape room where when you first walk in, to both the right and the left you have the first two paintings which are almost slightly separated from the other five. This is that the majority of my pieces fit under the because, as shown from my previous slides when I began looking at paintings related to the topic title of Aestheticism where one of it’s main of the ’Sun’ I took at a look at two separate paintings that were both depicting the same story of focal point is about the skill and beauty of the work itself. the myth of Daedalus and Icarus, whereas all the paintings that came afterwards were under the genre
Exhibition Floorplan:-
of Aestheticism while also relating to the topic of the sun in a slightly different way, more so looking at the time of day/season to which they were captured in (although, three of the pieces still maintained the connection to myths). My actual reasoning for choosing an L shape room rather than say just a square or rectangular layout is in attempt to give a greater sense of flow and movement as well as direction that could potentially be lost in a room of a simpler shape and could instead create more of an overwhelming feeling due to the mass of one big space.
Virtual Gallery:-
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Both this and the next few slides show a more visual, virtual representation to 6. gain a better understanding of how this 7. exhibition would look. Although I tried, I was unable to find decent images online for most of the paintings with their original frames, hence why I have substitute frames instead. 1. ’The Lament of Icarus’ by Herbert James Draper in 1898 in oil on canvas at a size of 70.8 x 59 in.
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2. ‘Landscape with the Fall of Icarus’ by Pieter Bruegal in oil on canvas at 28.9 in × 44.1in at around 1560 3.‘Clytie’ by Lord Frederick Leighton painted in 1895 at a size of 65 x 53in in oil on canvas
4. ‘Clytie’ painted in 1890-2 at an unknown size in oil on canvas 5.‘The garden of Hesperides’ painted in 1892 in oil on canvas at a diameter of 66.5in by Lord Frederick Leighton
As you may have noticed, the order in 5. which paintings 3, 4 and 5 are in are different to the way in which I analysed 6. them originally. My reasoning for 7. changing this order is because both of the ‘Clytie’ paintings, to me, should be shown as a pair and because of the way the room is structured with the windows, if I had maintained to the original order then these two paintings would have been separated which I feel would definitely be a downfall to the exhibition overall if I had kept it.
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Although on the previous slide I said I struggled finding most of the actual frames for the paintings, after having a search online, in the end I did manage find a picture of ’The Garden of Hesperides’ in it’s original frame which I’m very pleased with, not only because it would have been hard to find a suitable frame that suited the piece but the actual frame itself is so wonderfully decorated that I feel really helps to elevate the decorative aspect of this piece further
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7.‘A Sleeping Girl’ by Albert Moore painted in 1875 in oil on canvas with a support of 12 x 8.8in
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With regards wall colour, in the end I chose this muted green colour as I felt like, for the most part it not only complimented the colours used in most of the paintings but also wasn’t too distracting, too bright or too in your face but at the same time wasn’t to plain and unsettling. As for the floor, I went for a dark would to compliment the fact the I used a fairly dark and muted wall colour along with how in my opinion it works at giving more of a traditional feeling that I feel as though a lighter wood wouldn’t give out as much.
6. ‘The Roses of Heliogabalus’ by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema in 188 at a size of 52 x 84in in oil on canvas
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When it came to these two paintings, I swapped the order of them around as well, my reasoning this time is due to how ‘The Roses of Heliogabalus’ is such an impacting piece, I felt as though it better suited being in the corner situated between two other paintings that are both smaller than it as opposed to being at the end of the exhibition on this final wall where it would look unbalanced amongst the other paintings in this little area.