Yale Center for British Art, Epilogue

I felt I had way too many pieces that I enjoyed to share to fit into one report, so I decided to share the rest in this post, in a more informal way, just for viewing.

This was the first painting I came across on the second floor, Evening Glow by John Atkinson Grimshaw. I liked it because of the way he portrays the sunset haze across the alley while the woman walks.

This is Ghost in Garden by Carel Weight. The information next to the painting tells us that the ghost in the garden is not a traditional ghost, but the ghost of the old woman sitting on the bench (i.e. her younger self). I liked the way Weight had composed the "ghost" to be transparent, I'm assuming that this was achieved through some sort of watering down of the paint used after the background had dried.

The Great Fire of London, with Ludgate and Old St. Paul's, painted by an unknown artist in the 17th century shows a three day fire that engulfed portions of London. I thought it was a fine example of a historic event. I wasn't sure if the foreground was the church on fire or not, but the information says that it is Ludgate, the westernmost gate of the city. This was painted shortly after the fire, so the artist had a pretty recent memory for a frame of reference, having more than likely witnessed it.

This is a painting I saw on the fourth floor, and the reason I stopped to look at it was because I thought it was a John Trumbull piece, and couldn't figure out why it was here instead of across the street. The artist is Benjamin West, and American who was over in Britain before the start of the Revolutionary War. The Death of Chatham is a painting depicting the historic event of the death of the Earl of Chatham, who dropped dead in chamber after making an impassioned speech against conceding the colonies to the American rebels. West does a good job of paying tribute to (or wholesale ripping off) Trumbull's painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Still, it's a good painting.

These two paintings I took photos of because the contrast  between shadow and light reminded me of the Magdalene painting I focused on at The Met. Academy by Lamplight and The Blacksmith's Shop are both done by Joseph Wright of Derby, who also did The Prisoner, which I shared in my actual report. I thought it was interesting that there was more shadow in both of these paintings than was found in the painting depicting an isolated prisoner.

One of the last painting I took a photo of was called The Wish by Theodor von Holst. I stopped at this one because I was walking down the hallway and stopped briefly to shuffle through the photos I had taken so far. I started to walk again and looked up and there's this mysterious woman staring back at me, almost inquiring why I am there, yet, already aware of why. She looks like a carnival tarot reader, or perhaps a depiction of Esmerelda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Unfortunately, I feel the lighting in the photo I took does the mysteriousness quality of the painting a disservice. I wondered why she was using playing cards though? I know that tarot can be read using playing cards, so I wonder if von Holst had substituted one for the other in an effort to lessen controversy over the subject of his work?