Visual & Decorative Arts Blog

2015 marks the 125th anniversary of the death of beloved, world-famous artist Vincent van Gogh. Through in his life he was little known, he has become hailed as one of the greatest Dutch painters, after Rembrandt. Similarly to today’s celebrities, it is impossible to separate van Gogh’s troubled life from his works of art. He suffered from severe mental illnesses and relied on the creation of his art as a means of keeping his illness at bay.

The general feeling from all of the critics that have reviewed Frederick Wiseman's documentary on the National Gallery is that it captures the gallery magnificently. Time Out called it 'Wiseman's densest and best' work and gave it five stars. It is said to be a fascinating look at not only behind the scenes, but a detailed look at the people who visit – tourists, school groups, professionals and students. Geoffrey MacNab, reviewing the documentary in The Independent writes, 'Some of the time, Wiseman gives viewers the sense that they are inside the gallery alongside other visitors. At other points, his camera scrutinises the faces of museum-goers with the same fascination that the artists whose work hangs in the gallery treated their subjects.' The documentary gets into all the nooks and crannies and no small detail is left out.

As explored in our previous Kandinsky blogpost, this is an artist who had a strong awareness of colour from an early age. This is brought out with great intensity in his later, more abstract paintings: the works that we now recognise most clearly as ‘Kandinsky’s’. Paintings like ‘Yellow, Red, Blue’ (1925) demonstrate the play of colour that Kandinsky used as a way of echoing, and influencing, emotions.     

The star of today's (16/12/14) 'Google Doodle', Wassily Kandinsky was an abstract painter born in 1866. Considered by many to be the 'Father of the Abstract', Kandinsky's art focussed on the portrayal of colours and shape – he compared the compositions of his paintings to the creations of the cosmos, beauty borne from catastrophe. In today's blog we look at the master's early years and how it was that he selected abstract as his form of choice. 

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was an artist in the 19th century. More than this, he was a multi-talented artist-craftsman: painter, architect, furniture designer; the list goes on and on. His art was incredibly influential, and a lot of the motifs, patterns and principles of his work are still popular with today's audience and artists. 

Reviews for the new film Mr. Turner are out, and the general consensus is that this film is just as great as Turner's original paintings. Timothy Spall's performance even won him the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival, and a lot of people are saying that his portrayal of J.M.W. Turner could even win him an Oscar. Robbie Collins, of The Telegraph, says, 'His repertoire of grunts alone comfortably extends past a hundred, and you wonder if perhaps Spall went Method for the role, living for years in a sty until he got the voice, posture and smell just right. But beyond the troughfuls of fun tics, Spall makes Turner tenderly and totally human, which has the effect of making his artistic talents seem even more God-given.'

In Shoreditch right now, you can visit The Art of the Brick. This unique exhibition hosts a variety of artwork consisting of over 1 million Lego bricks and 80 pieces of art. The exhibition has received mixed reviews far, with some reviewers lauding Nathan Sawaya's art as an excellent blend of classic art and contemporary playthings (great for children interested in art), with others outlining the pointlessness of the whole project (rubbish for art connoisseurs). A re-occurrent question certainly seems to be, 'Well, why?'.

The Kiss is one of Gustav Klimt's most iconic works. Representative of many emotions and themes, Klimt broke the mould with this work by portraying the woman as someone who is submissive in her erotic love, yet still essentially feminine. The Kiss stands at the peak of Klimt's Golden Phase, melding together his passion for the colour and all that it represents. Spiritual, elegant and conveying the deepest sense of love, Gustav Klimt's masterpiece is a fascinating work of art full of influence and allegory.