Reveiw One - York Art Gallery

The first of hopefully many reviews to come from me in the near future.

York Art Gallery. 

    On a recent family holiday to Yorkshire, I was unwillingly taken to the York Art Gallery. The only reason I didn't want to go was because the art galleries I've been to in the past have all tended to be yawn-fests. I'm quite the artistic person really.
    
At the Gallery they were promoting an artist called William Etty. He originates from the York area and is considered to by very talented. This particular expedition took up the whole ground floor and consisted mainly off naked ladies and naked men and naked children and, well, you get the picture. Don't get me wrong, the artwork was technically flawless, but the artwork had no emotion, no essence of the artists imagination.

Youth on the Prowl,  and Pleasure at the Helm

    Around the room there were glass cabinets with Etty's original sketch books in. These showed the sketches he had drawn while in learning. These little drawings were fascinating and I actually began to find myself appreciating his artwork more. I still hate his paintings, but the sketches

in those books were remarkable.

   The painting on the right hand side is one of his paintings that I didn't think was half bad. In fact I rather like this piece. The way he has painted the clouds and sky is very delicate and make the painting have more feeling. Something i think he has missed in the rest of his paintings.

   So after a quick skim around down stairs (Yes. everything I just wrote was only a skim.) I wandered up stairs where there were three more rooms full of artwork, and if I may say, more interesting artwork.

Dish by Shoji Hamada

    The first room I entered was full of pottery. Something I'm not at all interested by or care about, but there was fan in the room and downstairs had been boiling. So I learned to appreciate the pottery for a few minutes.

    In a remotely smaller room next door was my favorite expedition in the gallery. It was about an artist called Austin Wright. He drew and painted but was most famously known for sculpting.

Marquette for two rings

   

    The Drawings in the room were crudely drawn and abstract (not as expertly drawn as Etty's "masterpieces" downstairs...) They showed character and illusion, (which did end with me and my sister arguing over whether one painting had 1 or 2 people in it.) Wright put heart into his artwork and his sculptures were phenomenal. He used a huge amount of imagination building his sculptures, which in the end could be seen as ironic as most of the sculptures require imagination to look at. I believe it was his intention to make us wonder, and to make us imagine what his sculptures are trying to represent.

    In the fourth and final room there were mixtures of different paintings and sculptures from a mixture of artists. The first Artist that caught my eye was Jules George.
    The paintings were detailed and beautifully coloured, making the dark themes of war feel alive.
    You could really see the feelings of the soldiers she painted and while looking at them you I felt an admiration for them.

Into the Valley

    The quality of the paintings themselves are of a high standard (and the subjects are a lot more meaningful than Etty's paintings downstairs...) No imagination was needed as she simply painted what she saw. What's remarkable is what she saw. She lived with the soldiers and painted their lives. So even if the soldiers she worked with didn't make it back, they will be remembered in her artwork.
   That's the amazing thing about Artwork, no matter what type or what era it was created, the subject of the work will be remembered long after the artist is gone. Take the Mona Liza for example. A nobody from an unknown town will forever be remembered because someone asked if he could paint her.

  
The Last Artist I will talk about is Susan Stockwell.
    At the back corner of the room i was in was a huge cabinet consisting of this magnificent dress. Colonial Dress is made out of world maps and styled in a Victorian manner. (The British Empire could be seen in pink)

Colonial Dress

    It has been beautifully sculpted so that it looks almost like it were made out of fabric. It has been placed in a way that the map itself is continuous throughout, so if you get lost while waring it, you could you it to get you home.
    The piece felt rather neglected at the back of the room. I think It needed to be brought forward so when people walk in they spot it and admire it. It was quite out of place where it was, sitting behind a 3D television sculpture - thing (which I'm not not quite sure what it was...) If it was put nearer the other side of the room where all the Victorian paintings were, I think more people would have been able to appreciate it for what it was.

    That concludes my first review. How did I do?
    If you have any questions, please ask.
    And I hope you will keep visiting for new reviews.

Farewell.

It's Weird...

This is not a Review! What I am writing is a spur of the moment rant about the state of the country!

   The Rioting that’s currently going on in my country is non-existent in my life. It’s not because I don’t care or that I refuse to listen than rather the country was on it’s way here. To this point.
   On Tumblr (you should try it :D) I saw a post of the Riot. A picture of a Mob holding Brooms in the air. What upset me about this post was that in the comments someone said that the was people come together is amazing and that they’d love to live here. I couldn’t help but think how ignorant they were about the matter.
    Most people would be wanting to leave this country to live somewhere where they can be more financially stable. And where the Government is actually helping the problems that arise in the country.
   The Riots don’t effect me personally. If it wasn’t for the newspapers I read daily, I would not have even known It was going on. Yet it is sad that I am so used to the bad news surrounding the country. Being politics and violence, that while reading the pages I felt no compassion for the victims.
   The Riots, from what I’ve understood, are all to do with the way the country is run. Now, we all know we’re in a recession and whatnot but it seems we have hit a point in time when prices will not go down but continuously go up until everything is too expensive. Meaning The UK will become a third world country.
   Usually, as it has been done for centuries, our Allies SHOULD give us loans to keep our country afloat. Unfortunately, because of the state, not just of the UK, but the world, These Loans will not be plausible.
Although everyone looks at the state of the country they live and simply says to themselves that the situation will get better. Though deep down, we all have the fears that it won’t.
   This is the second set of Riots this year, The Student Riots being earlier this year (which had a very silly reason) and now these Riots. If there are going to be Riots every few months then the country will end up looking like a battle field.

   I don’t see a solution to this problem. All we can do right now is pray. Pray for the victims of the Rioting. And Pray that we will not end up like them.

It's a Blog!

Well, after a long time hoping and wishing and a long time wishing and hoping I finally managed to drag myself over to this website to start blogging. Too 90s? Well, I like the 90s. The music, the TV shows, the movies, the fashion. I didn't know fashion had an H in it. Thank you spellchecker!
So I've joined the 90s! Two decades late, but I'm slow like that.

My First review will be posted sometime between Friday and the Friday after that. It will be about and art gallery I was somewhat dragged to. Although it was painfully bad down in the headlining expedition, the rest of the gallery did not disappoint, but more on that in the review.

The Same week I post the review on the art gallery I will probably post a review on the hugely anticipated movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2. If you as much of a fan as I am, as in you've read all the books, played most of the games and seen the movies too many times to recall, Then you'll enjoy this review. You will also enjoy it if, like me, if there is a sad moment in the film that everyone else in the cinema is crying at but the scene is so badly acted you're trying not to laugh at. Because I can assure you there were some of those moments in this movie.

I will probably post reviews on new books, CDs, TV shows, games and websites as well as loads more so keep a look out 'cause there might be something interesting.