18/7/23 - Acquisitions and rehanging - London, Tate Britain - The new museum-wide presentation of works at Tate Britain clearly has a thoughtful subtext in which colonial issues, gender and everything else that constitutes the alpha and omega of today’s progressive good guys versus reactionary bad guys is heavily emphasised. We will leave aside here, however - otherwise this observation might be even more obvious - the few works of contemporary art that provide a supposed moral counterpoint to the older paintings, or the rooms from the 1940s to the most recent art, which are outside our scope. Fortunately, the museography and the colours of the walls are very successful (ill. 1 and 2), and the works are sufficiently numerous not to frustrate visitors, thus showing most of the paintings we expect to see, and also revealing many recent acquisitions. It is essentially from this latter angle, that of certain additions to the museum that we have not previously mentioned, that we will choose to discuss this re-accommodation, in two articles that will follow the tour in the order chosen by the museum.
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- 1. The first room of the Tate Britain’ new hanging
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 2. A room in Tate Britain’s new hanging
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
Although chronological, this exhibition is also intended to be thematic,essentially from a sociological perspective... A questionable option, as some British critics have pointed out, as it amounts to considering art only as an illustration of society. If this is also the case, of course, then purely aesthetic considerations are overlooked rather hastily. The first room (ill. 1) is therefore entitled "Exiles and Dynasties 1545-1640". An innocuous title, which doesn’t really mean anything, but it was necessary to find something. While the paintings by Van Dyck and Rubens, which were so important to the development of English painting, will be particularly admired, there are also two anonymous Elizabethan portraits that are a little stiff, bequeathed to the museum in 2018 by Dame Drue Heinz (ill. 3 and 4).
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- 3. English school, c. 1590
Portrait of Mary Kytson, Lady Darcy of Chiche, later Lady Rivers
Oil on canvas - 202 x 124.3 cm
London, Tate Britain
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 4. English school, circa 1605/10
Portrait of a Lady, probably
Mrs Clement Edmondes
Oil on canvas - 210 x 109.8 cm
London, Tate Britain
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 5. Mary Beale (1633-1699)
Portrait of Charles Beale
Oil on canvas - 126.8 x 102.9 cm
London, Tate Britain
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
Very soon the Tate felt obliged to distinguish female artists from their male counterparts. They are thus given a room almost entirely to themselves (though not quite). We are reminded, which is obviously true, that only or almost only the daughters or wives of artists could practise this profession. And above all, we are shown some lovely paintings that really belong here. This is the case of a portrait painted by Joan Carlile, acquired in 2016 (see the news item of 7/12/16), one of the first professional women artists. However, from a purely artistic point of view, this portrait, while not lacking in quality, is inferior to those by Peter Lely, for example. A little further on, a fine portrait of her husband by Mary Beale (ill. 5), the first English woman to have a real career as a painter, was donated in 2019 by Tate Patrons, the equivalent of a society of friends of the museum.
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- 6. "The exhibition age 1760-1815" room in Tate Britain’s new hanging.
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 7. William Parry (1743-1791)
Portrait of John Parry Holding his Harp, 1780-1790
Oil on canvas - 76.8 x 63.5 cm
London, Tate Britain
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
Room 4, entitled ’The exhibition age 1760-1815’ has a closely-hung display (ill. 6), like a Salon. Among the recent acquisitions that we did not mention, there is a fine portrait by William Parry (ill. 7), bought in 2019 from the Miles Wynn Cato gallery. A Welsh artist and pupil of Joshua Reynolds, Parry was the son of a blind harpist, and it is his father whom he portrays here with his instrument. Several of his works are in the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, including two paintings and two drawings of his father, one of the pictures being close to the one acquired by the Tate. In the same room, A School or The School Mistress (ill. 8) is the painting that launched John Opie’s career when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1784, and was noticed by Horace Walpole. The work was the subject of an acceptance in lieu before being assigned to the Tate in 2020.
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- 8. John Opie (1661-1807) A School or The School Mistress, 1784
Oil on canvas - 102.3 x 127 cm
London, Tate Britain
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
If we had to demonstrate the futility of thematic groupings, the next room would be perfect. The title is indeed: ’Troubled glamour 1760-1830’. Glamour" refers to English high society. But it is ’troubled’ because this society is based on slavery, the army, industrialisation, the wealth of the ruling classes, and a whole host of things that are not at all good. This causes tensions... As the label (which can be [found online at https://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain/display/historic-early-modern-british-art/1760-1830]) explains: "tThese tensions are rarely explicit in the art of this time, but they lie under the surface, in the stories of who commissions paintings, where their money comes from, and the choices artists make about what is or is not pictured". In short, 17th-century English society is appalling, but the Tate has no choice but to show it, taking every possible precaution. We will therefore see paintings by Stubbs, Zoffany, Gainsborough, Reynorld, Wright of Derby, Romney... but you should probably be a little ashamed, especially if you are English, that this kind of painting exists. A fine painting by Zoffany (ill. 9) was bequeathed in 2006 but only entered the museum in 2008. Another acquisition is presented in the same room, a painting bought in 2003 (ill. 10). It is by Agostino Brunias, a painter born in Rome but who made his career in London and then in the Caribbean, in Dominica where he spent the last thirty years of his life. The scene looks cheerful, but make no mistake: "Brunias’s images of Caribbean life have been scrutinised closely as evidence of the complex and distorted European perspective on the slave plantations". For a slightly more balanced view of this artist’s art, we refer you to the news item of 10/8/11.
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- 9. Johann Zoffany (1733-1810)
Colonel Blair with his Family and an Indian Ayah, 1786
Oil on canvas - 96.5 x 134.6 cm
London, Tate Britain
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 10. Agostino Brunias (1730-1796)
Dancing Scene in the Caribbean
Oil on canvas - 50.8 x 66 cm
London, Tate Britain
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
We will continue our visit in a second article to come.