Exercise- Write a Review

Typed below is my own exhibition review of Towneley Hall and Museum Art Gallery. Towneley Hall is my local stately home with a 15 minute walk away and they always have mini exhibitions and beautiful firm collection, which this review is based on.

 

STUDENT NAME- SOPHIE ELISE HANNAH FAWCETT

STUDENT NUMBER- 516127

COURSE SUBMITTED FOR ASSESSMENT- PAINTING 1, PRACTICE OF PAINTING

BLOG URL- https://fawcettpaint.wordpress.com/

 

PRACTICE OF PAINTING, PART FOUR, EXERCISE- WRITE A REVIEW, WORD COUNT- 492

When visiting Towneley Hall Art Gallery and Museum, I had already had previous experiences of the landscapes and knew that amongst the collection there, the variety of landscape paintings from different movements was guaranteed, spanning from the late 18^th century straight up to the late 20^th century.

Whilst viewing the works, certain paintings such as Robert Ladbrooke’s ‘The Old Farmstead’ and Augustus Wall Calcott’s ‘The Tempest of Aesculapius’, gave a beautiful contrast between the busy Grand Tour and a quiet and cosy scene of an English farm. Investigating the styles was quite interesting, seeing how Calcott had a conventional and uniform style, presenting a good use of tones, shadows and transition from one colour to the next, as Ladbrooke’s approach had a rather darker palette concentrating on a dreary, atmospheric and busy scene depicting a gothic and Yorkshire landscape where harsh and blurry scenes surrounded the only area that was highlighted by gloomy rays.

When moving onto the 19^th century paintings, there was a slight shift in style and there was an absence of contrast within the pieces on show. William Mellor, Hume Nisbet and Heywood Hardy all seemed to include a softness and romantic atmosphere within the genre landscape paintings depicting the beginning of spring and the calmness and warmth that fills a landscape in autumn. Knowing that Romanticism had occurred around this time, as well as the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood, seeing these beautiful scenes painted with pastel and warm shades did not take me by surprise, and with some previous knowledge to the century, these paintings reinforced what my ideas had already been on the movement and century.

Within the 20^th century, I was expecting a great change in style, and a simplifying of the subject. The artists Robin Ernest Bownass, Joseph Crabtree and David Wild confirmed my expectations. All three men conveyed a use of tone, shape and pops of colour throughout the entire paintings, creating styles that had not been seen maybe until the arrival of the Bloomsbury Group. Each artist used their own depiction of their subject and created a chaos consisting of lines, blocks and tones that meant that the eye did not just focus on one focal point, adding to the sense and projection of a busy atmosphere.

I always enjoy visiting Towneley Hall Art Gallery and Museum, as it is only a 15 minute walk, and have never really truly looked and analysed the influences and history behind the paintings. This exhibition of landscape paintings presented a great shift in artist’s process but mainly, I believe that the most important shift was the decrease in perfection and the arrival of quick and short paintings simply containing lines, blocks and tones. I do believe that in the 21^st century, artists have a variety of styles and influences contrasting from realism to abstract, but this exhibition presented a basic outline of the change within three centuries and the beautiful pieces that were painted during this period.