Tag Archives: Art

Gustav Klimt and the Vienna Secession

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Gustav Klimt and the Vienna Secession

Vienna is deservedly renowned for its majestic classical and neo-classical architecture, and can best be appreciated by taking a walk along the Ringstrasse where the Museum of Fine Arts is located. The museum is a good example of this type of architecture and everything about the building and its contents is impressive.

Those of you who read my previous post about the museum might remember the marble staircase that leads from the entrance lobby up to the cupola. The first thing you’ll see is Canova’s Theseus Slaying the Centaur, but your eyes will soon be drawn towards the Lunette pictures by Hans Makart at the top of the stairs. What might not be quite so obvious are forty spandrel paintings underneath them by Gustav Klimt, his brother Ernst, and Franz Matsch.

These paintings were created on the narrow sections of wall between the arches and columns: So what? I hear you ask. Well, these paintings are the exact opposite of classicism – and here they are in the most (neo)classical of buildings in the centre of Vienna. Gustav Klimt is the most famous exponent of this style of art which was part of the Secession movement, and is a term that you will constantly come across in Vienna.

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Originally posted 2023-01-14 12:07:16.

The Newlyn Artists – Pt 2 Edwin Harris and the Birmingham Boys

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The Newlyn Artists - Pt 2 Edwin Harris and the Birmingham Boys

In Part 1, I described how Birmingham artist Walter Langley adopted Newlyn as his home with the objective of creating everyday scenes similar to the French artists who painted en plein air. Being the first notable artist to settle in the port, he is generally regarded as founder of the art colony known as the Newlyn School – but there was another contender.

Langley’s artistic career began at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA) where he became a close friend of Edwin Harris, who also decided to take his palettes down to Newlyn. Harris was born at Ladywood in 1855 and entered Birmingham School of Art at the age of 14, and apart from Walter Langley, his fellow colleagues included William John Wainright and William Breakspeare: All four of them were involved in forming the Birmingham Art Circle whose objective was to give encouragement to younger artists, but their close association also meant that the ‘Birmingham Boys’ would all end up down at Newlyn.

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Originally posted 2025-02-17 15:49:11.

The Newlyn Artists – Pt 1 Walter Langley And The Founding Of The Newlyn School

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The Newlyn Artists - Pt 1 Walter Langley And The Founding Of The Newlyn School

Cornish fishing harbours are a magnet for tourists, but Newlyn has never really been one of them. While St Ives on the opposite side of the Penwith Peninsula attracts plenty of visitors (some say too many at times), Newlyn may just get a handful drop in on their way from Penzance to Mousehole.

I don’t think it bothers the good people of Newlyn too much though because they’re more interested in trying to earn a living from the main business of fishing, and which is why you’re more likely to find a down to earth pub full of raucous fishermen drinking copious amounts of ‘Proper Job’ rather than a sophisticated wine bar occupied by ‘ladies who lunch’ sipping the odd glass of Chardonnay.

Newlyn may not have attracted as many tourists as St Ives, but it has attracted as many artists (and I’m not talking about the drinking variety now): In actual fact, artists arrived here to paint en plein air quite a while before the St Ives school was established, and if you’re interested in reading more about the art scene in St Ives you can find it in my post Have you Seen the Light?

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Originally posted 2025-02-09 09:37:31.