Tate Toast

Thanks to Alex for the title suggestion. Several of my friends have been to the Tate Modern Art Gallery in London before I visited. We were warned it would take most of the day and that having lunch in the courtyard would be a treat. Everyone was right. We had a lovely, very long day, and the food was a treat.

 

There is so much to see it can be overwhelming. Here are a few of my favourites. Julien Treyvelyan (1910-1988). I love a Klee painting or sketch but Treyvelyan really impressed me.

A Symposium (oil) Treyvelyan 1933 - a Surrealist vision of the mythology of a fragile city scape.

 

What I really liked about this painting is that Treylevyan has used a three dimensional approach to his composition, layering blocks of painting on top of the larger painting.

Sometimes I just love a structure. This is about 5 feet tall and 12 feet long. All painted steel. Years ago I would have stomped past, but I've learned to look at these oversized sculpture as if they were huge life statues. I look for interesting intersections or views through or how a thick line relates to a thin plane. I also look at how the shadows play on fields of colour, making a different kind of 'painting'.

A first ever, I found a Picasso that I nearly like. This is pretty tame for Picasso and I think it is the colour range that I prefer. It helps that the portrait has some character and emotion as well as a relationship between one body part and another.

Most of the art at the Tate is behind glass, so there was too much reflection to make good images for a blog. They are good memory tweeks for studio work. Next week, gardens galore.