Late at Tate: Friday 2nd January 2009
Commissioned to make a sound piece for Room 9 at Tate Britain.
The collection in Room 9 focuses on romantic painting in Britain. The piece was called 'Marriage', its purpose to draw attention to the paintings on display.
The information about each painting below has been taken from the tate website, and mirrors that which can be found in the room. The audio files on this page are all excerpts. To listen, press play below each picture.
St Benedetto, Looking towards Fusina, by J.M.W. Turner
Turner’s admirer, John Ruskin, thought this dazzling sunset was his finest Venetian picture. It lacked ‘one single accurate detail’, but it was still ‘the likest thing to what it is meant for’.Not the least inaccurate element is the title: there is no church of S Benedetto here. Turner may simply have been in a muddle. But he could have intended to show the vision of the sun experienced by St Benedict of Norcia at the end of his life. This would tally with his association of sunset with Venetian decline, and his own experience of the city late in life.
The audible accompaniment to this painting is thought to be an extremely rare, previously unheard recording of Turner. It was unearthed in a house in Verona in 1986, and had been virtually inaudible (damaged, possibly due to flooding). It was digitally enhanced by Giovanni Pico, who used to work for La Web-radio dell'Università di Verona. The voice is thought, by some experts, to belong to Turner because of the reference to Ruskin, who is known to have acquired some of his watercolours. See below for a full transcription of the recording.
JMW Turner
"...in a boat most of the day but not a gondola they bob up and down so that the paint goes everywhere so when you're doing a loose bit or a wash or hopeless friendly detail your hand wobbles / but the, the light's ethereal, or evanescent...but that’s, err that’s,...fog...it's been quite foggy at times and err and, and I’ve been here nearly a week now I make up a lot of the painting in my room when I get back to my lodgings it's / cos it's been very wet and I get in a such a mess in that boat / the gondoliers, the singing, err it really annoys me...concentrate
I met that err Ruskin recently he's bought a lot of my watercolours err so I’ve got more done erm and err I... cutting off the tops of some of the buildings on the grand canal / I did one which I’m planning to call balconies on the grand canal but the palace was much too tall to get on the paper so I had to cut the top off the balcony / when I get...back in my room / most of the time it’s trying to get the tones and colours right and throw in some shadows if the sun stays out long enough
oddly enough the light comes from the dark its not obvious to (the) non painter but with watercolour you’ve got to plan ahead and throw in the shade sort of carefully afterwards unless I'm working on some of that blue/grey paper when I can use white...body white which needs to be done carefully not too much of it "
A Scene at Abbotsford, by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer
Mitzi's blues, by Richard Manuel
"Sir Edwin Henry Landseer was a brilliant and precocious artist who began exhibiting animal and historical pictures in the 1820s. He painted a number of Scottish Highland subjects and, like Turner, illustrated the works of the novelist, Sir Walter Scott.
From 1824 Landseer was a visitor to Scott's house in the Scottish Borders, Abbotsford. This picture conveys the Romantic atmosphere of Scott's house. His great deerhound, Maida, who was then dying, lies with his younger companion, among antiquarian relics and sporting trophies"
Gordale Scar (A View of Gordale, in the Manor of East Malham in Craven, Yorkshire, the Property of Lord Ribblesdale), by James Ward
Little White Bull, by Tommy Steele
"Gordale Scar is a great bank of limestone cliffs near Settle, Yorkshire. Ward painted this picture for Lord Ribblesdale, a local landowner. He emphasised the height and scale of the cliffs by subtly manipulating the perspective. In the foreground he shows deer and cattle, including a white bull from the (originally wild) Chillingham herd, who appears to guard the cleft of Gordale Beck."
Hero, Having Thrown herself from the Tower at the Sight of Leander Drowned, Dies on his Body, by William Etty
Drowning on Dry Land, by OV Wright
Mrs Siddons, by Sir Thomas Lawrence
Big Fat Woman, by Eddie Hinton
"Sarah Siddons was the greatest tragic actress of her age. She was particularly famous for her interpretations of Shakespearian roles, in particular Lady Macbeth. Shakespeare’s plays became an inspiration to the Romantics for their free form and vivid and varied characterisation.Siddons retired from the stage in 1812; Lawrence painted her near the end of her career."
An Avalanche in the Alps, by Philip James De Loutherbourg
Avalanche, by The Handsome Family Band
"The Alps were a familiar landscape for generations of British travellers, but it was only in the later part of the eighteenth century that their rugged and immense qualities could be appreciated for their Sublime associations. Here de Loutherbourg, who specialised in Sublime landscapes, supplies an element of narrative drama with tiny figures recoiling from their impending doom."
Homer Reciting his Poems, by Sir Thomas Lawrence
Sitting in the park, by Georgie Fame
"This early work was exhibited in 1791. It was painted for the connoisseur, Richard Payne Knight, and its subject and style were calculated to suit his classical taste. In a woodland glade, the Greek poet Homer is shown reciting his Iliad to an admiring audience. The nude youth in the foreground was drawn from a famous pugilist named Jackson."
The Reconciliation of Helen and Paris after his Defeat by Menelaus, by Richard Westall
Her Name Is, by George Jones
A Certain Girl, by Warren Zevon
"In Greek legend, the beautiful Helen was the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. Her affair with the Trojan prince, Paris, led to the Trojan War.Westall painted this picture for Thomas Hope, a fabulously wealthy collector of the antique and of selected contemporary art. Hope’s taste ran from strict neo-classicism to Romantic exoticism. The rooms of his London house were furnished and decorated to reflect various regions of the ancient world – Egypt and India as well as Greece and Rome. Westall modelled the figure of Helen on a Greek statue in Hope’s collection."
The Great Day of His Wrath, by John Martin
1) The Awakening, by Hawkwind
2) My Kingdom, by Dead Cities
"Martin specialized in apocalyptic subjects, which reached a huge audience through prints.This painting belongs to a group of three ‘judgement pictures’, inspired by the final book of the New Testament: the book of Revelation. It closely follows the biblical account of events leading up to the Last Judgement:There was a great earthquake and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair and the moon became as blood. ....every mountain and island were moved out of their places."
The Last Judgement, by John Martin
I plan to stay a believer, by Curtis Mayfield
"This is the central painting of Martin’s three ‘judgement pictures’. It illustrates the main event in the book of Revelation. God sits enthroned in the heavens, surrounded by the four-and-twenty elders. At lower right the forces of evil, led by Satan, are defeated and tumble into a bottomless pit.To the left is Mount Zion, where the good, already in ‘the plains of heaven’, are waiting for their call to appear before the throne. Among them are numerous artists and poets. Martin published a chart to accompany the picture and identify them, as well as many of the evil characters."
The Plains of Heaven, by John Martin
Up up and away, by the Johnny Mann Singers
"This is another of Martin’s three-part series of ‘judgement pictures’. It expands the celestial landscape in The Last Judgement, where ‘the good’ are shown assembling in the plains of heaven.Here they appear dressed in white, on the crest of a hill, in front of a paradise of lakes, waterfalls and mountains."
Special thanks to Adrian Shaw.
All text (c) tate.org.uk