Blooms

A Still Life of Flowers in a Wan-Li Vase, 1609-10

Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder

Facing the Modern

I've finally got round to seeing the Viennese portraiture exhibition at the National Gallery. I don't know a lot about the period or the main painters featured - Egon Shiele, Gustav Klimt, Gustav Mahler - but really enjoyed the show, despite its really quite dark undertones.

Klimt, whose painting 'The Kiss' has seen a thousand mugs and placemats, painted some very beautiful portraits of dead women

Portrait of Ria Munk on her Deathbed

1912 

And one of the most moving drawings was by Egon Shiele, of his pregnant, dying wife

 

 Portrait of Edith Shiele Dying

1918

But there were also lots of portraits of beautiful women in their Viennese finery, i.e lots of sartorial inspiration

Portrait of Maria

1912

Josef Maria Auchentaller

Hermine Gallia

1914

Gustav Klimt

The show skims the surface of what preoccupied Vienna at the turn of the century - I certainly left with a long list of things to google....and it's definitely worth a visit before it closes on the 12th January.

Freud

 

I finally got my act together and went to see the Lucian Freud exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery last week. Despite the fact it was absolutely heaving, I loved it and recommend it to anyone who is able to go and see it before the show closes on 27th May.

Sunday Best

 

Lord John Stuart and his Brother, Lord Bernard Stuart, c.1638, Anthony van Dyck

I hurried over to the National Gallery again after work today and managed to scoot through the doors just before they closed for the evening (yes, I was that annoying person, security guard). This evening I purposefully walked in the opposite direction to the rooms I instinctively head towards, and ended up in front of this van Dyck painting of the Stuart brothers, who were also wards of King Charles I. Wow those boots and lace frilly sock things... Lord Bernard Stuart's outfit (on the right) is particularly opulent. I love all the lace and trimming, the pearl buttons and satin gloves.

In stark contrast on my way out, I came to an abrupt halt in front of this guy

 

 Portrait of Don Justino de Neve, 1665, Bartolome Esteban Murillo

No showing off of fancy frills here. I think it was Don Justino's determinedly steady eyes though, that made the painting feel so different to King Charles' wards. I love that the dog is the one wearing the bows in Murillo's picture. I suppose I have in small ways, been trying to adorn myself in lace recently with my homemade shoelaces. Murillo was a Spaniard, and very popular in Seville during the 17th Century. The Spanish know how to do lace. Click on the ladies below to have a look at some Mantillas I saw first hand last summer.