'The Hay Wain' by John Constable - with Andrew Marr

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Andrew Marr on "The Hay Wain" by John Constable last Friday night. This is the second episode of the second seasons of Great Paintings of the World Programme on Channel 5.

I was particularly struck at the end by the thought that this is precisely the sort of programme BBC4 should be making - rather than the BBC relegating BBC4 to becoming an archive channel!! 

It appears to me that we now need to look for quality programming about art on channels other than those 'allowed' us by the BBC.

Anyway, back to the programme......

Episode 2: The Hay Wain by John Constable

 

John Constable (1776 - 1837) believed in the importance of working from life and was dedicated to the way he wanted to paint and basing his paintings on his drawings of the landscape, skies and 'weather'.

I thought I knew quite a bit about John Constable, having seen a number of exhibitions of his work and written about him. However, I was surprised by some content included in Andrew Marr's excellent, well researched and cogent story of his life, family and development as an artist.

He came up with a number of things I either didn't know or hadn't appreciated properly before. Such as

• The site and size of his father's home in East Bergholt (the link is to Constable's painting of it - not featured in the programme)
  
• his experience of being shown at the RA Summer Exhibition - and the decision to "go bigger" to get more wall space and a better position (a sentiment not lost on many of those entering competitive exhibitions today!)
  
• His work experience prior to becoming a painter which led to him being a pre-eminent painter of weather and clouds
• the fact that he was a great success at the Paris Salon and sold many more paintings in France before he became a popular artist in the UK.
  
• His preparation for painting The Hay Wain - including the full scale study for the painting
  
• the historical socio-economic context for the 'The Hay Wain' in terms of the movement of people - from living in the country to the cities

Do watch the programme on catch up if you can. You won't regret it if you enjoy landscape painting! 

I also commend to you the National Gallery page about The Hay Wain - which allows you to see the painting full screen and also zoom in different parts of it.

The Hay Wain (1821) by John Constable (1776 - 1837)
oil on canvas, 130.2 x 185.4cm

 

Plus for those unable to view Channel 5, here's a video by the National Gallery about The Hay Wain.

 

More about John Constable

These are my blog posts 

• 'Constable, Gainsborough, Turner and the Making of Landscape' at the RA (2013) 
• Constable Portraits: The Painter and his Circle (2009) 
• BritArt in History - RA exhibits admirable collections of British drawings (2007)

Plus these blog posts from my Travels with a Sketchbook blog 

• Hampstead - Flask Walk, Burgh House and John Constable (2009) 
• Sketching Constable in the V&A (2011)

My sketch of Constable's "Boatbuilding near Flatford Mill"
11" x 16", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

 

Plus some links to works by John Constable 

Some excellent summaries can be found on

• Wikipedia - John Constable
• The Artchive - John Constable 
• The impressive exhibition of his landscapes at Tate Britain focused on the relationship between his sketching and the production of six foot canvases.
  

I highly recommend the collection of his work at the V&A

• these are links to work by John Constable in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum - and the articles about them 
• plus do take a look at the very many artworks by John Constable in the V&A Collection
  

Great Paintings of the World with Andrew Marr

Andrew Marr is currently telling the stories behind some of the world's greatest paintings by famous painters on Channel 5. 

works made with almost supernatural skills, fierce passion and extraordinary brainpower
Andrew Marr

The World's Greatest Paintings with Andrew Marr (on Channel 5)

I'd have missed it altogether if "he who must not be bored" hadn't spotted it and asked me if I was watching the series. On which basis I'm assuming a few other people may also not be aware that this series is currently available to view.

I very much recommend the series. Andrew Marr (who describes himself on Twitter as elderly amateur painter and presenter of the BBC1 Andrew Marr Show) is surprisingly good at both telling both the story and indicating his appreciation of the artwork. You also get to find out all sorts of details you never knew before.

How much of it is Marr and how much of it is research by art history experts is unclear - but the programmes certainly have a distinct Marr flavour to them. He's no stooge for the words of others.

It's also great for all those who will never ever get to the Museums in which you can find these paintings on view 

Great Paintings of the World

You can watch on Channel 5 at 6.15pm - 7.05pm on Saturday evening. If using on demand some are different timings e.g. 8.15pm

Paintings covered to date (plus the link to the episode on Channel 5 on Demand) are:

• Episode 1: Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci (The Louvre) - The story of the portrait that attracts eight million onlookers every year, Da Vinci's the Mona Lisa - which didn't become famous until it was stolen in 1911

It’s hard to imagine Simon Schama devoting a programme to the Mona Lisa. Come on, she’s art’s queen of clichés, a tourist magnet drawing crowds to grab selfies. But snobbery be damned, because Andrew Marr opens his series on great paintings by properly examining why this modest portrait – not even his favourite work by Leonardo da Vinci, he says – has become the most recognisable work of art there is.

He does a good job, too, taking us back to the “culturally swaggering” world of Renaissance Florence, where Leonardo was in his 50s by the time he set about painting the young wife of one of his father’s clients. That sideways pose and direct gaze were revolutionary, we gather; the use of “sfumato” blurring around her mouth was the special effect that brought the about-to-smile half-smile to life; and it wasn’t until 1911 that the painting became a global celebrity – by being stolen. (Radio Times)

• Episode 2: Sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh (National Gallery) 

Screen capture from Radio Times which is devoting an article to each episode (so far)

• Episode 3: The Fighting Temeraire by JMW Turner (National Gallery) - the story behind The Fighting Temeraire, JMW Turner's masterpiece, once voted to be the nation's favourite painting.

With the last one I loved the fact he pointed out all the things wrong with the painting! For example - being painted the wrong way round - because the setting sun should have been on the other side of the painting if it was being towed up the River Thames to Rotherhithe (speaks woman who worked this out a long time ago given the fact she is regularly blinded by sun setting in the west at her home in Bow immediately north of Rotherhithe!)

UPDATE: MY APOLOGIES

Below is what I wrote when I thought the series was 10 programmes - but looking back now at Radio Times they've got it listed as a series of 3 programmes.

I'm now wondering if the discontinuity between the press release material I found (see below) and the reality is down to the Pandemic - and the rest will come later?

A new TV series is set to tell the story behind ten of the greatest painting in the world - but according to a new study, only six per cent of adults can correctly identify them. article about the new series (my bold)

PS They definitely had a trailer for the next episode re Picasso at the end of Episode 3 when I watched!!  Plus as you will realise the opening shots all involve the paintings listed below - strongly suggesting more episodes to come

I'll update again if I find out more.

Next week's episode is going to focus on The Weeping Woman by Pablo Picasso (Tate Britain) - which is, of course all about Guernica and the model for the painting was Dora Maar who was his mistress between 1938 and 1944.

I'm speculating what the remaining seven "iconic paintings" will be. If the introduction to the series is anything to go by I'm expecting

• Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus (Le Galerie degli Uffizi, Florence)
• Rembrandt van Rijn's The Night Watch (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
• Diego Velázquez's The Toilet of Venus (The Rokeby Venus) (National Gallery)
• John Constable's The Hay Wain (National Gallery)
• John Millais's Ophelia (Tate Britain)
• Claud Monet's Water Lilies - the murals (Musée de l'Orangerie)

Andrew Marr sat in the basement of L'Orangerie - viewing one of Monet's great paintings of water lilies

I'm absolutely certain one of the future programmes is going to be about Monet's Water Lilies at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris (because of the pics for the series). These paintings absolutely overwhelmed me and filled my eyes with tears the first time I saw them. I was incredibly lucky to see them for the very first time incredibly early one Saturday morning in the late 80s with nobody else in the room. I'd arrived in Paris on the Motorail from Provence (a service which is no longer available!). My visit to the water lilies was followed by a very nice lunch near the L'Orangerie and my driving out to Giverny to visit Monet's garden - and then to Calais for the ferry and back home to London.

A day I will never ever forget - I've got a very clear visual memory of it even now!

Anyway - back to the topic - I very much recommend this series of programmes and suggest you catch up with the first three episodes and then watch the rest. You won't regret it.

Art from the BBC Archives - a retrospective

The BBC has been having a rush of art to the BBC4 programme controller's brain. Moreover it is raiding the BBC Archives as a way of making television programmes about art while spending very little. Or as the programme makers put it

Delving into the BBC Archives to reveal a colourful, surprising and rounded portrait of how television has chosen to portray the world’s most famous artists and artistic movements over the last 60 years.

This post is about:

• another new series of programmes about art - on Sunday night (which started last night)
• a BBC Archives website Collection of various Art Programmes

Art on the BBC

The series or four programmes (4 x 60 minutes) about "Art on the BBC" comprise:

• 2nd February 2020: The Story of the Nude (now available on iPlayer)

Humans have been drawing nudes for almost 30,000 years. Kate Bryan explores six decades of BBC archive to discover how television has influenced our understanding of the nude.

• 9nd February 2020: The Many Faces of Picasso - a television history of Picasso who the BBC term "the controversial godfather of modern art" - curated by David Dibosa (pictured) 
• 16th February 2020: The personality of Michelangelo - curated by Sona Datta
• 23rd February 2020: Constable - pushing the boundaries of landscape painting - with Rose Balston

It follows on from a programme in 2018 (repeated in 2019) about The Genius of Leonardo. The video below gives you a sense of the approach of these programmes.

ART ON THE BBC_THE GENIUS OF LEONARDO_CLIP1 from Alleycats Films on Vimeo.

Art from the Archives - The Art Collection

You can also go direct to a BBC Archives website Collection of various Art Programmes and view the various programmes from the Archives which are available to view on iPlayer.

These include:

• Omnibus: Lucian Freud (1988)  - I've watched this one and will no doubt view it again (Available for over a year)

For over 40 years, the artist Lucian Freud has allowed his paintings to speak for themselves, but in this week's Omnibus he talks for the first time about his work and ambitions.

'The greatest living realist painter' is critic Robert Hughes' description of Lucian Freud, whose major retrospective at London's Hayward Gallery earlier this year, brought together the paintings of a lifetime. The exhibition was seen as a revelation, just as it had been in Washington and Paris. 

• LS Lowry at work (17 July 1957 short 3 minute extract) - The artist LS Lowry discusses his painting technique, in a documentary about his work. Originally broadcast 17 July 1957 . I don't think I've ever heard his voice before

"The buildings always come before the figures"

• Rossetti - Sex, Drugs and Oil Paint (2003) - Andrew Graham-Dixon considers the work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the painter and poet who reinvented the Victorian ideal of female beauty... and who dug up his wife's coffin to retrieve poems he had buried with her. 

available on iPlayer

• Release: Pop Goes To The Hayward (5th July 1969) 

On July 9 London's Hayward Gallery becomes host to one of the largest exhibitions of Pop Art to be seen in this country. In the words of one of its exponents, Pop Art is ‘young, witty, sexy, glamorous, and big business’. It is an instant art form and has had instant success. Robert Hughes talks to leading pop artists in New York amid the ad-mass living that inspires their art. Artists featured include Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, George Segal and Andy Warhol.