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C W Cobbett's Wey DFAS is grateful for the support offered by The Farnham Herald. Please click on their logo below to visit their website. |
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Cobbett’s Wey NADFAS group commenced their Autumn Season of lectures with a stunning presentation by Valerie Woodgate entitled ‘Making Sense of Modern Art’. There was a hush of anticipation, this was the ‘hot’ topic could Valerie Woodgate really help us to understand in the course of one hour? A slide of a cartoon appeared. It showed a male in a gallery. In front, hung his canvas of what appeared to be concentric circles. “They’ve hung it upside down!” he shrieks enraged! We felt immediately reassured, Valerie Woodgate was a fellow traveller. The advice she had to offer was simple. Stand back. Analyse the history of the twentieth century. Consider the maelstrom of horrifying events of which it is composed. Two world wars and an assault on existing values; these were bound to be reflected in the art of the age. It is useful to remember that science was challenging known certainties, Einstein’s theory of relativity was produced in 1909. Against such a backdrop, how could art continue in the same mould? Animatedly she took us through the schools of the twentieth century comparing and contrasting styles and keeping her audience with her all the way. She asked us to consider Matisse, “the Tracy Emin of his day” and his art before 1914. A Belgian used to grey skies and damp weather he became enlivened by the climate and colours of Southern France. In this situation he used soft but vibrant tones and chose more traditional subjects. Suffice it to note that the critics of the time did not like his style and thought it outrageous. After ‘The Roofs of Collioure’ (1905) we were asked to consider Karl Schmidt-Rottluss and his picture entitled ‘A woman with a bag’. The woman unhappy, her clutch bag held upside down, is painted in dark forest colours. Instead of flowing rounded curves, the woman’s body outline is one of jagged lines, she exudes misery, anxiety and depression and the shapes give form to her angst. That angst was felt by the German nation following their defeat in World War I. After her exposition of the painting, comments on colour, style and brush strokes it became obvious to one and all, this painting, by this German, at this time could not have been presented any other way. After that Mrs Woodgate held us in the palm of her hand. She avoided nothing. Tracy Emin and her self-portrait bed, Damien Hurst and that shark it was all suddenly eminently reasonable! Cobbett's Wey you saw it here first! We shall be going up to Tate Modern and Britain to be guided around by Valerie Woodgate.
CWDFAS is a member of NADFAS |
It is a testimony to their hard work that Elizabeth Leslie and Carol Craig, programme organizers for the Cobbett’s Wey DFAS group, presented us with yet another superb lecture this month. Diana Lloyd speaking on William de Morgan and the Arts and Crafts Movement gave a thoroughly professional and comprehensive presentation. It was good to visit this important area of English design through one of its less well known members. Like William Morris, William de Morgan was a man of independent means and could therefore indulge himself in the premise behind the movement that one should not buy anything that had been mass produced. At that time, Britain had become The Workshop of the World. Industrialists were producing new products cheaply for export and to be purchased by the working classes and the newly evolving middle class. The Williams denigrated this notion. Each piece produced should be individual, not quite like any other and furthermore the artisan should have enjoyed making it. A good notion founded in philanthropic fervour but not sitting well in economic practice; Diana Lloyd asserted that a small piece would cost £75.00 and a larger one £150.00 when the average wage would have ranged from a few shillings to a few pounds a week, for the average worker! It was a thrilling time to be alive. The Great Exhibition of 1851 had drawn examples of styles from all over the know world to Britain. Those particularly influencing the Arts and Crafts movement were Japanese, Islamic and Moorish. Hence Whistler produced blue and white pottery in the style of the Japanese, Morris produced hand knotted rugs and ceilings and plaster work are evocative of Moorish palaces. William de Morgan was a designer and drawer not a potter. He was also a chemist and his interest and expertise was in ceramics and tiles. He experimented with glazes and pigments, particularly enamels which he used to depict fantastic, although it has to be said sometimes hugely ugly, birds, snakes and beasts. His contribution was chiefly in the production of tiles which were used in fireplaces, bathrooms and bedrooms sometimes incorporated in furniture of oak or mahogany, if a bowl or water container was to be set on it. Diana Lloyd showed some excellent slides illustrating all her points very professionally. She advised us to visit Leighton House, Londonand Wightwick Manor near Wolverhampton to see work of this period at its best. GO TO PRESS ARCHIVE MAY 2006 & JUNE 2006 GO TO PRESS ARCHIVE MARCH 2006 & APRIL 2006 GO TO PRESS ARCHIVE JANUARY 2006 & FEBRUARY 2006 GO TO PRESS ARCHIVE OCTOBER 2005 & NOVEMBER 2005 GO TO PRESS ARCHIVE JUNE 2005 & SEPTEMBER 2005 GO TO PRESS ARCHIVE APRIL 2005 & MAY 2005 GO TO PRESS ARCHIVE FEBRUARY 2005 & MARCH 2005 GO TO PRESS ARCHIVE NOVEMBER 2004 & JANUARY 2005
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