J W Waterhouse at the Royal Academy

[Aly Fell]

I know he has a few fans here, including me, well the Royal Academy in London has an exhibition of Waterhouse from:

27 June—13 September 2009

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/waterhouse/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8116369.stm

I shall try to go!

Here's a picture of him with his dog, some girls in a pond, and another wondering if she's left a spoon in the fork draw:

[GriNGo]

One day.. one day... amazing artwork, specially the girls in the pond.

[MarkHarchar]

This show will be in Montreal in October. It will be the only showing in North America, so plan your trips now.

[dcorc]

I saw this exhibition yesterday at the "friends" preview. It is stunning - do not miss it. Not only are most of his most famous works in the show (though the exact exhibition varies by location - for example "Hylas and the Nymphs" is showing in London, but unfortunately won't be in the Montreal show), but certainly at the London exhibition they are beautifully displayed, and I was able to spend several hours there examining the paintings very closely.

Matthew Innis has a breakdown of what's on display in London and in Montreal on his blog:

http://underpaintings.blogspot.com/2009/05/jw-waterhouse-modern-pre-raphaelite.html

Dave

[wookiedabo]

certainly been looking forward to it, but it completely slipped my mind of late, thanks for the heads up.

[Yngling]

I have had the fortune to see this very exhibition in the Groninger Museum in Holland earlier this year. It was a really nice, albeit not so large exhibition. What I liked very much was the fact that they also showed studies and sketches along with the paintings. You could even follow the process from thumbnail sketch to oil sketch to final for some pieces. Besides that, the paintings were great of course! I was especially amazed by his Circe offering the Cup to Odysseus. Such a majestic piece! I highly recommend anyone to go see this.

[Molly]

...oooh, I feel a UK meet coming on.... :)

[nickydraws]

I saw this in Groningen too. I travelled 3 hours on the train to see it. Although a bit smaller than I expected it was an excellent show.
There were quite a lot of people. It's funny, there was another exhibit in the museum of some Abstract-Expressionist I'd never heard of. I decided to take a look and there was nobody else there! Everyone had come to see Waterhouse.

My favorite piece was "Ulysses and the Sirens".

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/John_William_Waterhouse_-_Ulysses_and_the_Sirens_(1891).jpg/800px-John_William_Waterhouse_-_Ulysses_and_the_Sirens_(1891).jpg (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/John_William_Waterhouse_-_Ulysses_and_the_Sirens_(1891).jpg)

[IKV Nexis]

God I wish it would come to the National Gallery of Canada. That would be so perfect. First the 14th century collection of art of Papal Rome (which I saw) then Waterhouse! In my dreams. Oh well I did buy a calender of all Waterhouse paintings so thats not so bad.:confident

[dashinvaine]

I saw it today, and will probably go back for another look. It was rather wonderful. Right up my street. Well put together, and deeply enchanting, all told.

I thought it was ironic that the title of the exhibition is 'The Modern Pre-Raphaelite, though. He wasn't a pre-raphaelite, (more a Romantic Classicist) and isn't modern- and nothing could be less akin to 'Modernism'. If he were alive today and painting the same sort of stuff, I doubt he could get a look in with the Royal Academy! This is a true travesty. The once respectable institution, like most art institutions, has been taken over by abstractionists and conceptualist bollocks-merchants- people who think a shambolic unmade bed constitutes an artwork worthy of appreciation, and who attach no value to pure beauty or to skillful draftsmanship. I mean, for example, Tracy Emin RA?! Reynolds would turn in his grave at the appointment of such a creature. (Turner too would live up to his name turning at what gets nominated for the prize that bears his name), while doubtless Waterhouse would withdraw in bafflement. Emin deserves to be shot by the Royal Artillery, not invested into the Royal Academy. It make me think -Stop the planet, I want to get off!- or at least to turn it back to a time when they had grander and finer ideas about art and architecture. The time of Waterhouse, ideally.

Credit to the RA for putting on the Waterhouse exhibition. It would be nice if they showed the work of any contemporaries painting in the same sublime tradition (who now, it seems, have to be called mere 'illustrators'.)

[Peter Coene]

The one with the girls in the pond is hawt! They sure had sweet porn back then.

[dashinvaine]

The one with the girls in the pond is hawt! They sure had sweet porn back then.

You should be an admin on deviantART. They chief qualification is an inability to differentiate between nudity and pornography.

[Jasonwclark]

I've always wanted to see 'Hylas and the Nymphs' up close. Its hanging in the living room right across from me, but you just know the reproduction doesn't do it justice.

Do they allow Cameras at the Royal Academy? If so, someone should remember to take pictures of the more obscure paintings.

:)

[dcorc]

Do they allow Cameras at the Royal Academy? If so, someone should remember to take pictures of the more obscure paintings.


Unfortunately, they do not. If they did, I would have already posted a large set of high-resolution details!

Dashinvaine - well-said in your comments about the current state of the RA. I agree 100%.

[dashinvaine]

It's very nice being able to see the paintings up close, you notice all sorts of subtle things lurking here and there- toads, snakes, birds, extra figures. Interesting to see the textures, too, the lumps and cracks, and how very smoothly and exquisitely painted areas often sit next to quite roughly handled regions. How he was somewhere beween Bouguerau and Turner, and how he managed to bring the two techniques together and get the best of both worlds.

[Flake]

I've always wanted to see 'Hylas and the Nymphs' up close. Its hanging in the living room right across from me, but you just know the reproduction doesn't do it justice.
:)

It doesn't.

The thing that always struck me about seeing Waterhouse originals is how smeary and painty bits of them are in real life.

They look tight in books but those 6 inch reproductions tend to be 4 or 5 feet across in reality, they're often looser than you'd think.

[Aly Fell]

I have a print of 'Hylas and the Nymphs' from the Manchester City Art Gallery just up the road from me where the original is normally hung. The reproduction from them is excellent when you get the see the genuine article.

One of the nice things about living in the north of England is all the Pre-Raphaelites and Victorian artists in local galleries, because they were bought by rich Victorian Industrialists like Lord Lever at Port Sunlight near Liverpool, which was jolly nice of him. Many went to Australia for pretty much the same reason.

On the subject of the Pre Raphs, the BEEB have a new series starting this month called Desperate Romantics (http://desperateromantics.co.uk/) about the original Pre Raph Brotherhood of Millais, Rosetti and Hunt. Could be fun, or a load of bollix! Depends whether they make it a soap opera or not.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/images/bank/programmes_tv/drama/desperate_romantics/446generic.jpg

[Flake]

There are a few nice detail shots of Waterhouse in this dudes Flickr gallery.

Click "All sizes" then the biggest one.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/freeparking/sets/72157600198405795/

[dashinvaine]

Bring back cravats and flamboyant wastecoats...

[Flake]

I can't help but feel awesome beards should also make a comeback.

[Dave Kendall]

I saw this show yesterday. Probably a lifetime chance to see so many of his famous paintings together in one place. Really, what a painter. The supporting catalogue book is well worth getting too. No reproduction can get close to the vibrancy of the originals but it's still one of the best books on Waterhouse I've seen.

[tobbA]

Yikes... Wish I was in London :/

[dcorc]

I have a print of 'Hylas and the Nymphs' from the Manchester City Art Gallery just up the road from me where the original is normally hung. The reproduction from them is excellent when you get the see the genuine article.

One of the nice things about living in the north of England is all the Pre-Raphaelites and Victorian artists in local galleries, because they were bought by rich Victorian Industrialists like Lord Lever at Port Sunlight near Liverpool, which was jolly nice of him. Many went to Australia for pretty much the same reason.

Indeed - one of the things that really turned me on to oil-painting in the first place was, as a teen, seeing Holman Hunt's stunning "Isabella and the Pot of Basil" in the Laing Gallery at Newcastle-upon-Tyne:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f5/Basilpot.jpg

On the subject of the Pre Raphs, the BEEB have a new series starting this month called Desperate Romantics (http://desperateromantics.co.uk/) about the original Pre Raph Brotherhood of Millais, Rosetti and Hunt. Could be fun, or a load of bollix! Depends whether they make it a soap opera or not.

Its a comedy show.They should have called it "Carry on Ruskin". :rolleyes:



Dave

[xinranliu]

YUS MONTREAL
alright

[Aly Fell]

Well, I finally got to see this this weekend. Excellent exhibition! If you want to see the majority of Waterhouse's best known works then there is unlikely to be another chance in the near future, certainly in the UK, so only one more week to go!

It is quite populist, but he has become a very popular artist, so there is more of his doe-eyed lasses staring dreamily into the near distance than of his earlier more classicist work like St Eulalia, which is there. I loved seeing The Magic Circle, Marianna in the South and Mariamne full size, quite stunning!

Moving to Montreal next!

http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/140008/1/Mariamne-Leaving-The-Judgement-Seat-Of-Herod-1887.jpg

http://www.illusionsgallery.com/Mariana-South-L.jpg

http://elizhitomi.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/403px-john_william_waterhouse_-_magic_circle.jpg

[Purrdey]

I mentioned this at work as the RA is about 200 yards from my office - turns out my boss is a "friend" so he took me one lunch time!
The one from Aberdeen gallery is one of my favourites - Penelope and the Suitors - http://www.johnwaterhouse.com/view.cfm?recordid=36

The freshness of the colours really stunned me, reproductions can never do them justice.

Unfortunately my all time favourite wasn't there, hope to see this original one day. http://www.johnwaterhouse.com/view.cfm?recordid=112

[Ariel9]

I had the luck of being in London at the time of the Exhibition. I had not even heard of him before (I did recognize some of the paintings, I just have a terrible memory), but I was really stunned to see so many masterpieces.

And also, I was shocked to see myself getting so moved in fron of The Lady of Shallot, I was about to cry. I've never seen so much sadness in a painting, I think. My heart still clenches just thinking about it. This may not be the measure of true mastery (although he really passes all the other mastery tests, for sure), but it's what really made this exhibition one I'll never forget.

The painting in question: http://home.clara.net/heureka/art/lady-of-shalott00.jpg

And, reproductions don't do them justice, indeed!

[Chris Bennett]

I saw it today, and will probably go back for another look. It was rather wonderful. Right up my street. Well put together, and deeply enchanting, all told.

I thought it was ironic that the title of the exhibition is 'The Modern Pre-Raphaelite, though. He wasn't a pre-raphaelite, (more a Romantic Classicist) and isn't modern- and nothing could be less akin to 'Modernism'. If he were alive today and painting the same sort of stuff, I doubt he could get a look in with the Royal Academy! This is a true travesty. The once respectable institution, like most art institutions, has been taken over by abstractionists and conceptualist bollocks-merchants- people who think a shambolic unmade bed constitutes an artwork worthy of appreciation, and who attach no value to pure beauty or to skillful draftsmanship. I mean, for example, Tracy Emin RA?! Reynolds would turn in his grave at the appointment of such a creature. (Turner too would live up to his name turning at what gets nominated for the prize that bears his name), while doubtless Waterhouse would withdraw in bafflement. Emin deserves to be shot by the Royal Artillery, not invested into the Royal Academy. It make me think -Stop the planet, I want to get off!- or at least to turn it back to a time when they had grander and finer ideas about art and architecture. The time of Waterhouse, ideally.

Credit to the RA for putting on the Waterhouse exhibition. It would be nice if they showed the work of any contemporaries painting in the same sublime tradition (who now, it seems, have to be called mere 'illustrators'.)

Oh God yeah, Tracy Emin the great bullshit hypocrite of our time! Standing in the gallery shop seeing those mugs with her sad ass drawings of cats stuck on them and alongside that her coffee table bullshit book of her drawings. This and that photo of her on the cover with her naked bikini arse sticking out from behind her painting apron as she holds a brush made me realise just how low the place has sunk. I've exhibited at the RA Summer Show many times over the years and thought about entering again this year after a layoff - but seeing this put me off in a single stroke.

HOWEVER: the Waterhouse show was absolutely wonderful - a little cramped and would have been better in the main galleries. But I got there early which helped. The surface of the paintings is a revelation - areas that look like a building site right next to finely painted moments and all perfectly in accord with each other. Also, the degree to which he was using glazes is quite astonishing. The sketchbooks reveal the degree to which he searched for a shape that expressed the narrative idea rather than just being notes on poses - they also reveal how the abstraction of the elements were at the forefront of his mind at all times.
The drama in his paintings is the play and relationship between the suggested and the precise. The early works do not have this and look somewhat 'embalmed' - it is only when the paintings develop a variety and contrast in their facture that he was really able to deliver and give a body to his inner vision in the form of the living presence of the paintings themselves.
An extrodinary experience, and for you guys in America, it will be well worth a trip across your continent to see them.
I only wish I could do it all again.

[Ghostbrush]

I have been to the Waterhouse exhibition 3 times already, I would really recommend getting down there! I will most likely be going again before it closes.

Sketching allowed u reckon?

[Ghostbrush]

I have been to the Waterhouse exhibition 3 times already, I would really recommend getting down there! I will most likely be going again before it closes.

Sketching allowed u reckon?

[Aly Fell]

I have been to the Waterhouse exhibition 3 times already, I would really recommend getting down there! I will most likely be going again before it closes.

Sketching allowed u reckon?

I saw people sketching in there, but seats were taken with lots of weary tourists, so bear that in mind! :)

I did feel they could have spread it out a little more, ie: another room wouldn’t have gone amiss. It would have reduced the congregations round each painting a fair bit. But hey ho...

There’s no shortage of Waterhouse love here which is nice.

Edit: One thing I thought was amusing is how the RA ramp up the Waterhouse connection with the place, but hardly anywhere did I see mention of the fact he was initially rejected by them.

[Ghostbrush]

Yeh the times I have been it has been rammed! quite annoying really, i would like to have seen some study sessions, open for students/artists to sit and study/sketch etc, would have been an amazing opportunity :(

I would like to go later this week for the final time, so If anyone wants to join, drop me a line.

[dashinvaine]

Oh God yeah, Tracy Emin the great bullshit hypocrite of our time! Standing in the gallery shop seeing those mugs with her sad ass drawings of cats stuck on them and alongside that her coffee table bullshit book of her drawings. This and that photo of her on the cover with her naked bikini arse sticking out from behind her painting apron as she holds a brush made me realise just how low the place has sunk. I've exhibited at the RA Summer Show many times over the years and thought about entering again this year after a layoff - but seeing this put me off in a single stroke.

Yes, who would invite the indignity of having one's work judged by an abstractionist?

[dashinvaine]

There’s no shortage of Waterhouse love here which is nice.

I stumbled across your Lady of Shalott piece the other day. NICE. I'm sure Waterhouse would approve.

[daveneale]

Yeh the times I have been it has been rammed! quite annoying really, i would like to have seen some study sessions, open for students/artists to sit and study/sketch etc, would have been an amazing opportunity :(

I would like to go later this week for the final time, so If anyone wants to join, drop me a line.

I was there this afternoon and asked a gaurd if it got quieter towards the end of the day and he said it was quietest in the mornings between 10 and 11, so if you can make it then I'd suggest that, there's also late night opening Friday night, which someone said was quiet right at the end when they went to see Velasquez there a while back. Would like to go again-may take my parents who are down at the weeked.

[Ghostbrush]

would u want to sketch there with me?

[dashinvaine]

Slightly off topic, but is there really any point making a spectacle of yourself sketching infront of original paintings in galleries? It invites everyone to look over your shoulder and I don't like that. (Yet I still can't resist having a spy whenever I do see anyone else drawing!). If I was copying something I'd much rather work in private from a print. I can perhaps see the point if you were doing a painting and wanted the textures to be accurate too, but if you're just sketching it seems hardly worth it.

[dcorc]

Slightly off topic, but is there really any point making a spectacle of yourself sketching infront of original paintings in galleries? It invites everyone to look over your shoulder and I don't like that. (Yet I still can't resist having a spy whenever I do see anyone else drawing!). If I was copying something I'd much rather work in private from a print. I can perhaps see the point if you were doing a painting and wanted the textures to be accurate too, but if you're just sketching it seems hardly worth it.

Yes, there's a great deal of point to this. Drawing from an original painting is not just a way of practising your drawing skills, its also a way of scrutinising the painting in great detail. There are many aspects of original paintings which do not translate well into photographic reproductions.

Dave

[Ghostbrush]

Slightly off topic, but is there really any point making a spectacle of yourself sketching infront of original paintings in galleries? It invites everyone to look over your shoulder and I don't like that. (Yet I still can't resist having a spy whenever I do see anyone else drawing!). If I was copying something I'd much rather work in private from a print. I can perhaps see the point if you were doing a painting and wanted the textures to be accurate too, but if you're just sketching it seems hardly worth it.


I have to say that I really dont care who looks, I am there to study. If I have noticed anything its not me the public are interested in, rather what I am drawing... it suddenly becomes 100 times more interesting to everyone, very strange.

I do find your comment a tad insulting.


Thank you Dave for pointing out the merits of such study :)

Alex

[daveneale]

would u want to sketch there with me?

Kind of screwed for time before it finishes-maaay be able to go Friday night-probably just gonna take the parents when they visit...if I can will let ya know:)

[ErikStorstein]

Just moved to Bournemouth from Norway yesterday, and it seems the International kickstart program I'm in is going to London on friday. Anyone want to meet up? I'll abandon their trip to the tate for this any day, or I might try find some place that I can spend the night :)

[dashinvaine]

I do find your comment a tad insulting.



Alex

That was far from my intention, I assure you. I was just debating the merit of the activity. I take your point.

[Chris Bennett]

Yes, who would invite the indignity of having one's work judged by an abstractionist?

I wouldn't call Emin an 'abstractionist' - rather a conceptual artist who is exploiting her fame by publishing her doodles in a coffee table art book because she realises the potential of the market. The quality of her work in this form is of the lowest order, yet the qudos of the 'Royal Academy' and her fame are used to give it credibility.
An institution that, while it hosts this magnificent Waterhouse exhibition, has also completely lost its way in terms of what it originally stood for - a standard of informed opinion in the visual arts.
I'm not arguing for realism verses abstraction - Much of the great painting of the 20th century has been abstract. I'm arguing for an institution that understands quality in the plastic arts - rather than the post modern, non-judgemental sand box where the clueless madarins of contemporary art play their meaningless games.

Anyways, like I said earlier on the previous page - get over to see this, its wonderful.

On the subject of drawing from the originals: nothing does you more good. The activity affords a communion with the experience of the work and how it was made that cannot be achieved from books. It allows you to look into the very heart of the work, to almost touch its life force by forcing you to gaze fiercely into the gestures that put it there. To sing the artist's song standing by his side.

[dashinvaine]

I didn't really have her in mind when I said that. It seems to me the academy is largely dominated by abstractionists, though, rather than - I don't know how to categorize Emin. (I'm not fond of temporally-orientated misnomers.) Maurice Cockrill is probably more representative of a RA http://cockrill.co.uk/ Although he can paint when he puts his mind to it, his usual output is not my cup of tea at all. The average academician seems to be a wilting abstractionists who throws garish primary and electric colours at canvasses in a desperate bid not to seem fusty or obsolete. Apparenty Damien Hurst turned down membership. Obviously the RA's keen to recruit formerly trendy YBAs, (no-longar particularly Y, and debatably ever As). The only classical thing left to the RA is it's very building. It's a miracle even that still stands given that the last couple of presidents have been architects hardly noted for traditional tastes or conservationist sympathies.

I would argue for realism over abstractionism, or at least the restoration of realism and classical idealism as an equally valid form of modern art, equally represented in modern galleries and teaching estabishments. Academies should allow realist painters a piece of the limelight, and value skill in production and beauty and depth of meaning in composition. Modernism swept away a stable, timeless and noble tradition and what has replaced it but succession of fads? Hardly any of these edgy avant-garde movements has produced anything edifying, enduring or culturally valuable. It's not even as though romantic-classicist and pre-Raphaelite imagery ever even fell from favour in all this time. It just got exiled from the fine art arena to the worlds of book illustration and the movie business.

On the subject of copying originals, you make some good points. I suspect it's also better in terms of getting an accurate sense of the colours. I've nearly finished a little copy of Waterhouse's painting 'Destiny', and in every print and photo I've found to go by, the colours look different!

[Burtzum]

Why can't they bring this down to the states? Hmmm... driving to Montreal from Virginia... 12 hours? hmmmm......

[dashinvaine]

It's worth seeing, but probably not worth twelve hours in a car, unless you're the world's biggest fan (and then you'd have to get back).

[Ghostbrush]

yo yo! I will be at Waterhouse in about 2 hours, come say hello if you are there, I will have my sketchbook, look out for it if u wanna say hi

Alex

[Sekino]

I know this is an 'older' post, but I thought it was worth mentioning again that the Waterhouse exhibition has just opened in Montreal (Oct 1st). I went to see it on Saturday and I was thrilled to see that, contrary to previous reports, The Lady of Shalott -1888 is also featured there!! :D

795062

Entrance is a mere $15 and you get to see ^this^ IRL!!

Maybe I was just lucky, but even though I went on a Saturday, there was a moderate flow of people and one could approach and observe all paintings with ease.

St Eulalia and Mariamne Leaving the Judgment Seat of Herod are majestic; A Mermaid, as an original, was so much more delicate and vivid than any prints I'd seen... It would take too many lines to gush over every piece that blew my mind! If you have the opportunity to travel to Mtl and see this, you won't be disappointed!

[ArtByManon]

Just found this thread!!! Whilst searching for paintings to do master studies of. I saw the waterhouse exhibit in london -it was faaaar to full (they let too many people in) and they should have done it in the main galleries. Baffling really. How can you look at Mariamne (amazing) when you can't see it for heaps of people?

Incredbile work though - fascinating like everyone says how he can keep detailed parts and then looser parts and from a distance it all looks SO highly worked. Gorgeous.

Don't even get me STARTED on the Turner prize... oh god it depresses me.