The National Gallery!
Perhaps my new favorite museum in the world next to the Louvre.
It is absolutely beautiful inside and out, located at the top of Trafalger Square.
I did not take a picture because it was raining out when I went (surprise, surprise...) and on top of that, pictures are not allowed to be taken inside the museum. Google Images will have to suffice...
(see top of the museum here ^^ bottom middle of this picture)
...and below is a view of the front of the museum.
There are countless masterpieces inside that I do not even have enough energy to recount right now but plenty of time to talk about these later. What I went to see first was the last day of an exhibition, Metamorphosis.
My initial interest was sparked when I read the Venetian Renaissance painter Titian would be prominently featured in the exhibition. I studied him in college in the only graduate-level class I took (I was the only undergraduate...intimidating) and since then I've had a particular affinity for his work.
Titian, or Titziano Vecellio, is particularly famous for his poesies, which mean "poems" and by which Titian meant that his series of paintings that were the visual equivalent of poetry. The three paintings depict three scenes from Ovid's Metamorphosis featuring the goddess Diana.
The first, Diana and Actaeon, 1556-9
(In this story, the hunter Actaeon accidentally walks in on Diana, goddess of the hunt, bathing in the woods with her nymphs)
the second, Diana and Callisto, 1556-9
(in this, Diana and her nymphs are bathing in a stream again, and her favorite nymph Callisto is revealed as being pregnant - by Jupiter nonetheless - something not allowed in Diana's crew of nymphs. She is expelled by Diana after the nymphs reveal her)
and the third, The Death of Acteaon, 1559-75.
(Diana tuns Acteaon into a stag because he saw her bathing - she then orders his hunting dogs to tear him to shreds and he cannot stop them - he is an animal and cannot command them. Titian has chosen to depict the moment the dogs are attacking Acteaon and adds Diana shooting her bow at him even though this moment is not described in Ovid - artist's liberty I suppose)
This exhibition is the first time since the 1800s that all three paintings have been united.
I was excited enough by this alone! Having looked at these paintings on a powerpoint for hours on end before, it was thrilling to stand in the middle of the circular room where the museum housed them and regard them together. The room was dimly lit and wallpaper a deep burgundy, adding a sense of drama to the scene.
However, the exhibition had more to offer!
Accompanying Titian's three infamous paintings, there was a contemporary artist's "response" to the paintings. Chris Ofili created a series of eight paintings that combined a kaleidoscope of bright colors - inspired by his native Trinidad - infusing elements of cubism, primitivism, and a bit of abstraction. Here is one of my favorites below:
Olifi's work, adjacent to the room of Titian works, is striking both in color but also in size - they are huge! Looking at one long enough, the themes Olifi focused on from Ovid become clear - themes of water, needing to "free oneself," and amorous desire pervade his work.
To accompany the paintings, The Royal Ballet commissioned 7 choreographers to respond to the Titian paintings. The sets were designed by the Olifi along with two others, Conrad Shawcross and Mark Wallinger. One room in the exhibition featured an ongoing movie of the ballet dancers practicing the dance and choreographers critiquing them. An excerpt of the ballet is online here.
There were also to very modern works, one depicting Diana as a machine and another an installation featuring a dark room where you could peek in on Diana in the designed "house" of sorts in the room - it was meant to engage the viewer and make him or her a participator in the very same act (of looking) that Acteaon was killed for for in Ovid's Metamorphosis.
This is certainly a simple description of the exhibition as a whole but it truly was striking. There were also miniature versions of the ballet sets to look at - it would have been amazing to actually see the ballet! And what an incredible project to undertake - so many works of art inspired by and responding to the three poesies by Titian.
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