REVIEW: THE NATIONAL GALLERY

Last week, an American lady took a painting that she had purchased for $50 at a flea market to an auction house in Virginia. Experts attributed the painting to Pierre-Auguste Renoir and are expecting to sell it for up to $100, 000 later this month. It's one of those 'why can't this happen to me' episodes isn't it? Well, luckily for me, it did. Two years ago I had much the same experience and discovered that I had an original Jean Cocteau hanging in my bedroom. Nice.
Unfortunately, my painting was nowhere near the 100, 000 mark but that's not the point is it? The point is, so many of us have treasures such as these sitting right under our noses and we don't have the foggiest. The BBC reported the story of the American, noting that 'a Renoir plaque on the frame prompted the woman to have it analysed by a local auction house'. Oh for goodness sake.
In much the same way, CULTURE VULTURES is here to point out some of London's incredibly valuable treasures that you did even realise we had. Cash in the Attic eat your heart out I say.

So surely The National Gallery is an obvious starting block? Having said that, a quick Caravaggio, Lorraine and Holbein hunt at the end of the morning's events were all we got to see of the permanent collection, our focus being very much on the Titian exhibition, the talk on Van Gogh's Sunflowers and the Pret a Manger sandwich selection calling us all across Trafalgar Square. Don't you worry Monet, we'll be back.

Things boding well after some stern words from the barista in the espresso bar about noise levels, we set off through The National's labyrinth of wonderfulness. First to Metamorphosis: Titian 2012 to experience a unique collaboration of three of Titian's masterpieces: Diana and Callisto, Diana and Actaeon and The Death of Actaeon, three modern artists: Chris Ofili, Conrad Shawcross and Mark Wallinger, and the Royal Ballet. Ofili, Shawcross and Wallinger set out to respond to Titian's sixteenth century paintings through art and dance, who was in turn responding to stories from Ovid's narrative poem Metamorphoses, completed in 8AD. So not only do we have all three art forms coming together on the same theme, but three different eras as well; so as an audience, we expect from art what the Romans did.
Titian uses two of Ovid's stories here. The first is of Callisto: a virgin nymph of Diana who, seduced by Jupiter disguised as the goddess herself, fell pregnant. Discovered when she was forced by her companions  (including Diana) to strip and bathe, she was banished from their chaste entourage. The second of the stories is also of Diana, but with Actaeon. In the second painting we see Actaeon coming across Diana and her nymphs bathing in the woods, and in the third painting, Diana transforms the 'voyeur' into a stag.

Titian, unusually choosing the subjects of these paintings himself, was commissioned to make them for Phillip II, the Spanish king. The artworks were hung in a room intended only for men in the kings' private apartments in the royal palace in Madrid. Their theme of eroticism and sexual desire is as clear as crystal, making them easy for modern artists to respond to in our explicitly sexual modern world. Ofili's large, colourful and dynamic canvasses allow us to enter into a world of phalluses, quite frankly. Classicism meets the Caribbean (an original one...) and dominant women take their sexual desire by the horns (or should I say by the penises) whilst submissive woman lean back for their body to be objectified by our glare. One of our wonderful vultures noticed the direction of the paint dripping down the sides of Ofili's canvases; on some, the paint was falling towards the floor, and on others, it was falling towards the wall. Here we have evidence of Ofiili's technique, painting the canvases both on vertical surfaces but also flat on the ground. Both this and the different substances used to prime the canvas allow diversity in Ofili's work. If we take 10 steps back into Titian's chamber, we can see that not only has the artist used sharp and energetic brush strokes in his Death of Actaeon, but he has also used his fingers to paint the canvas. These varying techniques not only allow variety in the paintings, but also continue this theme of sexual desire with tactility and energy in Titian's case, and the change of position with the canvases in Ofili's.

Shawcross also notes Titian's innovative style, impressed by his new brush techniques, the use of his fingers and the soft, shimmering atmosphere he used in later works (ie. the three we are looking at here). He felt a need to innovate also, creating his Trophy from an industrial robot that shines a light onto a wooden antler. Robots are often associated with monotony and controlled, programmed moves, however Shawcross manages to give this sterile piece of metal a personality. Diana shows both vulnerability and dominance in the nature of her movements, of course echoing both her objectification by Actaeon, as well as her powers in transforming him later on (and indeed with her rejection of Callisto). The Metamorphoses is all about dual identity- transforming from one to another - and although it is Actaeon changing from man to beast in this story, Diana not only transforms in attitude, but from Titian to Shawcross in form as well. Highly appropriate for the goddess of hunting, an activity in which there is a constant dominant and a constant submissive (50 Shades of Grey anyone?).

For me, it was Wallinger's response to Titian that ruffled my feathers. It is certainly a far simpler idea than the others, but then I'm a simple person. What you see is what you get with me; and that is why I love Caravaggio. A dark room; a dark shed in the centre; a few peep holes (through shuttered windows/cracked windows/keyholes); a naked girl inside the shed; a bath running; her bathing in it. Wallinger got it just right. We are the voyeurs and she is being objectified by our stare. We are the Actaeon's and she is our Diana; quite literally actually as all of the women taking part in Wallinger's installation are called Diana believe it or not. Thankfully it's dark outside the shed so there's no looking out from her. Negatives: you feel like a complete pervert. Positives: you won't be leaving the National with a pair of antlers on your head.

There really is a sense of sexuality about the whole exhibition: the human sized phalluses from Ofili, the flitting between submissiveness and dominance from Shawcross, and the voyeurism from Wallinger. As we spent our last few moments in the cinema room watching the ballet rehearsals, we realised the eroticism had even followed us in there, with anatomical close-ups of ballerinas and lots of discussions about padding or a lack of it. As one of our vultures pointed out, the artists' costume and set design combined with ballet sequences hark back to the Ballet Russes in the early 20th Century where artists such as Matisse and Picasso designed the same for the Russian ballet company, revolutionising the art scene.

I like to think that Minna Moore Ede, the curator of this exhibition and brain behind the brilliantness, may have a similar impact. Gracing our capital at a time where unity has been the protagonist of 2012 what with the Queen's Golden Jubilee and the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Titian, Ofili, Shawcross, Wallinger and all of those wonderful people at the Royal Ballet School have not seemed to veer off from the theme.


Having rushed to room 45 to make sure we bagged ourselves a seat as close as possible to Van Gogh's Sunflowers, I was asked by one of our vultures how we knew we were facing the right way... I felt reassured that I wasn't the only one in the room who knew very little about Van Gogh. The same vulture later remarked that the speaker herself resembled a sunflower, and I could not have agreed more. Not only did she have an open face and a bright smile, she also turned to talk to the painting which meant, with a Spanish school trip vamos-ing in my right ear, the acoustics weren't their best. My advice would be to get there early for lunch time talks to get a hot seat, but also my advice would be just to get there full stop. She was fantastic. An art dealer, a teacher, a missionary, an artist, anxious, obsessed with Gaugin, self-harming, brother's best friend, Van Gogh (not the lecturer) was a man with many sides (or identities - 'like Diana' I hear you say) and talents. I am not going to attempt to lecture you on what she lectured us, but there were a couple of points I was drawn to.

In a letter to Theo, Van Gogh's best friend and brother, he wrote: 

'I have three canvases going -  1st, three huge flowers in a green vase, with a light background, a size 15 canvas; 2nd, three flowers, one gone to seed having lost its petals, and one a bud against a royal-blue background, size 25 canvas; 3rd, twelve flowers and buds in a yellow vase (size 30 canvas).The last one is therefore light on light, and I hope it will be the best.'

And of course it was. And why did he paint dying flowers? Because how much more variation do you get with dying sunflowers than a bunch that are at their peak? A lot.

Now when Amy Winehouse died last year, for the first time, I heard of the '27 club'. This is a rather morbid club and not one I particularly wish to be a member of, but it is comprised of musicians such as Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison who all died at the age of 27 in relation to drug or alcohol abuse. In no way am I claiming that when Van Gogh committed suicide at the age of 37, he was having beer for breakfast, but I did find it a coincidence that Raphael had also died at the age of 37 and Caravaggio at 39. No relevance whatsoever, just an interesting comparison and a note that the life expectancy of famous artists seems to be falling... watch out Justin Bieber.

Finishing with a picnic by Buckingham Palace, conversations about our morning were had, as well as conversations about our lives, as well as conversations about the topless 70 year old man lying a stone's throw from my king prawn wrap. I can safely say that the first CULTURES VULTURES was a truly wonderful success.

For more information on the National Gallery and its wonderful goings on, visit: The National Gallery
For the extracts from Ovid's Metamorphoses, visit: Metamorphoses

Our wonderful drawing is done by Megan Niven, e-mail culture.vultures@hotmail.co.uk for more information.