Tate Britain Review

            Just a quick boat trip across the Thames from the Tate Modern, the Tate Britain is England's premier institution of British art from 1500 to the present day. The museum itself is massive yet easy to navigate. The architecture of the museum is especially impressive when you compare it to the minimalist qualities of its sister museum the Tate Modern. The doorways are shaped like large archways, and there is a haunting room lit dimly where impressive pillars loom as a video on screen whisks you through a tour of the museum, as if you were a ghost. This is just one grand room of many, where you will primarily encounter notable works of art by some of Britain's most famous artists, including works by William Blake, FrancisBacon, Thomas Gainsborough, , J M W Turner and Henry Moore. When you enter the museum I suggest you first walk through the BP Walk Through of British Art.

Tate Britain, London

            The BP Walk comprises a large section of the Tate Britain's first floor, and it is the best way to see a variety of art from the museum's vast collection. The Walk is designed to ensure that pieces from the collection's full historical range (1545 to the present) are always on display. The gallery is laid out like a circuit around the perimeter so that the galleries blend into one another, with no rooms leading to a dead end. The museum says the walk causes you to “experience a cross-section that is representative of what we know as 'British art', meeting both well-known and less-familiar works.” The dates on the floors indicate the period of art you are viewing, and there is a noticeable progression from the royal portraiture art style that was prominent during the 1500s, to the more experimental art of the late 1800-1900's, and to the modern art of today.

BP Walk, Tate Britain, London

            Some of the most interesting art from early English history are the portraits of monarchs and their various members of Court. The background details behind the pieces give them life, as you can see what the monarchs wanted to emphasize about themselves. For example, Nicholas Hilliard's portrait of Queen Elizabeth I was painted according to her wishes. Elizabeth wanted her portraits painted in a near shadowless style that served less to show a likeness of her, but rather to show a symbolic representation of herself, the Queen. The painting is dominated by the rich images of Elizabeth's clothing and jewelry, and a jewel above her hand takes the image of a phoenix. The phoenix is symbolic both of the city, London, that is always eternally reborn, and also of the unmarried Queen's virginity. Most of the paintings from this era are portraits, ones that exhibit numerous similarities in style. The subjects are painted in modest fashion against a dark background, with a focus on their clothing and accessories that accompany them. One painting that puts an interesting twist to the portrait style of the time is The Cholmondeley Ladies.

Queen Elizabeth I, Hilliard, Tate Britain, London

            The Cholmondeley Ladies, by an unknown English painter, is a painting filled with mystery. In addition to the unknown identity of the artist, no one knows for certain who these two women are, or if they are even members of the Cholmondeley family. The two women are said to have been born on the same day and married on the same day, and their children can be seen held in their arms. While the women appear to be identical twins, a closer inspection reveals that one has blue eyes while the other has brown eyes. In addition, their clothing also shows minor differences that award viewers who pay close attention. The attention to detail here is really impressive, and the piece stands as a hallmark of British portraits.

Cholmondeley Ladies, Tate Britain, London

            As you progress through the walk, you will continue to see more portraits of note. One aspect of the style that you should notice is how the portraits grow more varied in color, composition, and pose. The standard image of a person sitting and framed in front of a black background from the waist up is replaced by a livelier portrait. Thomas Gainsborough's Giovanni Baccelli serves as a prime example of this. The titular subject is painted in the costume, make-up, and pose from a ballerina she performed in that season. Gainsborough manages to capture the woman's grace and her vivacity shines through as well. The colorful background, a forest path, also adds to the calm and poise of a ballerina that is reflected in this portrait.

Giovanna Baccelli, Gainsborough, Tate Britain, London

            In addition to numerous portraits, the walk also offers some stunning landscape paintings that are sure to command your attention. My favorite would be the trio of paintings by John Martin known as the Judgement Series. The subjects are the end of days from the book of Revelation. The paintings all depict landscapes either torn asunder by the wrath of God, or separated by the powers of good and evil. All three of the paintings are impressive in scope, vivid in color, and epic in their romantic vision of the end. The Great Day of His Wrath shows an entire city being destroyed and thrown into an abyss, The Last Judgement illustrates the titular event where God is condemning those on the right to hell and welcoming the saved on the left to heaven, and lastly The Plains of Heaven depicts a serene image of good and evil separated by a giant chasm in the Earth.

Turner Collection, Tate Britain, London

            Overall, these beautiful works and many more can be seen in the Tate Britain. If you are especially interested in British art, then this is a museum you should definitely visit. It is easy to navigate, varied in art type and art from different time periods, and filled with masterpieces by the most skilled British artists.

            -By Phillip Storm, Arts Correspondent, Visitmuseums.com

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Museo del Prado Review

            The Museo del Prado, located in Madrid, Spain, is one of the finest museums of European art in the entire world, and most assuredly the best museum of Spanish art. The museum features four floors of over 7,600 paintings, 1,000 sculptures, and 4,800 prints. This is a massive museum, and that is an understatement. If you do not have at least a few hours to spend here there is much that you will miss, and even then it would take multiple trips to see and appreciate all the fine art here. The museum actually recognizes this, and if you visit their website they offer three different guides that suggest what you should see for those who are planning to only spend one, two, or three hours there. I would recommend taking in a variety of different art that the museum stores, as it separates the art by nationality (Spanish, German, French, Flemish, Italian, British, and Dutch).

Prado Museum

            First and foremost, you have to see the museum's extensive collection of Spanish art (after all, you are in Spain). Two of the most notable Spanish painters are Diego Velázquez and Francisco deGoya, whose works are amongst the most represented of any artist in any museum around the world. Velázquez, who was noted for his baroque art style, produced two masterpieces that hang in the Prado titled The Adoration of the Magi and The Surrender of Breda. The Adoration of the Magi is noted for Velázquez's use of chiaroscuro, where strong contrasts between dark and light affect the whole composition (usually light subjects are composed against a black background). The painting depicts the  biblical story of the three magi showering the baby Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Velázquez's The Surrender of Breda shows the Spanish general Ambrosio Spinola receiving the keys to the Dutch city Breda after winning the battle and preventing Dutch independence. The only image of warfare is the smoky scene in the background, and Breda instead chooses to focus on the peace being initiated by the two cultures in the foreground. The painting is primarily colored in tones of blue and brown, in sharp contrast to Velázquez's other baroque work and the many paintings of Goya.

Adoration of the Magi, Velazquez, Prado Museum, Madrid

            Speaking of Goya, the man who has over 140 paintings housed in the Prado, his paintings can be seen in rooms 64 to 67 of floor 0. Perhaps his two most famous works, The Second of May 1808 and Third of May 1808 hang side by side in one of the rooms. The two paintings were commissioned by the council governing Spain after the country was victorious in the War of Independence against Napolean. The former depicts the popular riot of May 2, 1808, where the common people of Madrid attacked the Mamelukes (Turkish soldiers in Napolean's French Army) who were attempting to take away the former King Carlos IV's royal children to France. The common people attacked the Turkish moors with crude weapons like knives in an event that sparked the Spanish War for Independence. The latter painting from Goya is perhaps his most famous, as it is a startling depiction of the horrors of war and one of the first truly modern and revolutionary paintings. In the painting, a group of French soldiers with their backs to us are shown executing a group of rebellious Madrid commoners by firing squad. Whereas most paintings of war before this usually took a serious and realistic style in depicting war, The Third of May is highly stylized. The contrast of light between the executioners and the victims allows us to see the emotion in the doomed man's face, and the pose of his arms recalls the image of Christ hanging on the cross. Overall, these two are stunning and emotionally powerful pieces of art, and it is very common for large groups of people to stand here in awe of these paintings for quite some time.

The Second of May, Goya, Prado Museum. Madrid

   

         The other really notable collection of paintings for me was the Flemish school of art. Here, you can view works by legends such as Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, and Peter PaulRubens. Bosch's Table of the Mortal Sins is a wonderfully unique religious work. The four corners show the final stages of life: Death, Judgment, Hell, and Glory, while the inner ring features an image of Christ looking down upon the wheel, surrounded by depictions of the seven deadly sins. A similarly harrowing painting (albeit much more violent), Brueghel's The Triumph of Death depicts a plane of warfare, where the skeletal armies of Death have razed Earth and the people on it. The painting serves as an allegory for the inescapable grasp of Death. Here, everyone except the pair of lovers in the far right corner (although they too are doomed) is being violently killed by living skeletons. What is most interesting about this painting is the detail and variety with which Brueghel afforded it; you can see skeletons looting, pillaging, and murdering all the way to the background of the picture, and the different methods of violence the skeletons use is startling. On a brighter note, Rubens The Judgement of Paris depicts the ideal version of feminized beauty in the image of Paris deciding between Venus, Minerva, and Juno over who to choose as most beautiful. The elegance of the painting recalls the works of the Italian school of painting, and the detailed nude images of the goddesses gives us an idea of Ruben's vision of female beauty.

The Judgement of Paris, Rubens, Prado Museum

            I've only listed a few paintings here, but there is so much more to see in the Prado. This has to be one of the most in-depth and amazing museums I have visited so far. You walk around and there are masterpieces everywhere from all over Europe and from throughout the ages. Some of my other favorites include Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son, Titian's The Fall of Man, Claude Lorraine's Landscape with the Embarkment of Saint Paula Romana in Ostia, Antonio Joli's Carlos III Embarking in Naples, Corrado Giaquinto's The Birth of the Sun and the Triumph of Bacchus, and Giambattista Tiepolo's The Immaculate Conception. For any art fan (or fan of culture really) visiting Madrid, the Museo del Prado should be at the top of your to-do list.

            -By Phillip Storm, Arts Correspondent, VisitMuseums.com 

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Museum of Childhood Review

            The V&A Museum of Childhood is both a historical collection of toys from the 18^th century to the present and a place that attempts to symbolize what it means to be a child. The first floor consists of a vast collection of toys, from optical illusions to dolls to puppets to pop culture toys and much more. The second floor looks at childhood over the centuries and how the concept has evolved through ideas regarding the home, baby care, clothing, and how children learn and play. This is an interesting museum as you will find all sorts of people coming here to explore childhood, whether it be the young kids coming to have fun with their parents, the young adults who come back to reflect on their recent days, or even groups of elderly people who come for the sense of nostalgia. One of my favorite recurring images from this museum is seeing kids running around playing with toys while their parents rest on the couch. When you arrive here you should start by exploring the first floor.

Museum of Childhood, London

            Although we now live in an age where moving pictures and cinema are more readily available than ever, it was only recently that this came to be. Some early examples of moving picture toys are the zoetrope (designed in 1870 by Milton Bradley) and the praxinoscope. To use the zoetrope you simply spin the drum and look through the slits. To use the praxinoscope you spin the drum and look at the mirrors. When spun the praxinoscope presents a humorous image of a guy jumping through a ring. The remainder of the section showcases early toys based around optical illusions, including lenses, kaleidoscopes, and panoramic slides. Some panoramic slides featured (from 1850-1880) show the same scene of a logger in the woods during the winter and spring seasons. Slides like this show how entertainment could be derived from images and illusions.

Zoetrope

            The next section worth visiting is the section devoted to clockwork, or more specifically toys designed to move through internal mechanical devices. One of the largest and most notable objects you will see is the Wave Machine from 1980. Powered by a motor that activates a turning rod attached to a series of cams, the machine creates the image of a rippling effect as the wooden waves rise and fall. Other types of clockwork toys, called “automatons,” featured in the museum include many animal inspired creations and other objects that were capable of complex movements. Despite the innocence of many of these toys (for example, one of my favorites is called “Monkey Musicians”), they were actually quite expensive to make and were made for wealthy adults to impress and entertain their friends, not for young children to play with. Other similar toys are toys based on friction movement. If you remember those mini Mattel cars then you will know what I am talking about. The wheels wind up and store energy that is released when you let the car go. The museum offers a large sample of these cars for you to view.

Wave Machine

            Moving on you will see galleries featuring some of the most popular types of toys: rocking horses and marionettes. The earliest rocking horses were from 1600, and only three ones from that time period remain today. The earliest one in the museum's collection, a large unrealistic rocking horse from 1800-1850, is distinctively different from the rest in the museum that were designed to look like elegant real horses. From about 1700, rocking horses were traditionally carved from wood by expert craftsmen, and in addition were hand-painted and fitted with saddles and bridles made from real leather. Another type of toy with a long and storied history is the marionette. Puppetry is said to have originated in the far east, with drawings showing children playing with puppets coming from as far back as 1100. Some of the most fascinating puppets to view are the Japanese bunraku puppets and the Chinese shadow puppets. These puppets hail from a tradition of oral storytelling that was an important part of east asian culture. One of the most impressive objects in the museum's collection is the giant baroque puppet theatre from the 18^th century. Likely built in Vienna, the massive theatre was probably owned by a wealthy nobleman and used to entertain his family and guests. The theatre features two different backdrops and is incredibly impressive in its scope and size.

Bunraku

            The remainder of the museum offers much more to see, from galleries on video games to board games, famous sci-fi and fantasy toys (Star Wars and Lord of the Rings anyone?), and even impressive dollhouses and Chinese Rock Gardens. However, you should make sure you travel up to the second floor to see the galleries there. Here you can see the progression of children's fashion from the 1700s to the present day. While children's clothing was initially very formal and handmade, often consisting of dresses and multiple layers, the style eventually shifted to more mass produced clothes with the industrialization of the 1800s. Nowadays, children's clothing comes in a wide variety of styles with a focus more on brand names. The remainder of the second floor examines childhood by looking at the concepts of the home, baby care, and learning and playing and seeing how these concepts have changed over time. Last but not least, there is an in-depth exhibit on child war games that looks at gender differences, competitiveness, and dress up, among other things that question the controversy that surrounds children and war games.

            No matter your age, this museum will have something to offer you. If you have kids, bring them along and you will have free entertainment for them for the day. The museum offers lots of interactive exhibits and sections where children can play with toys, create their own drawings, or even learn how certain toys work. For adults, the museum brings back a lot of memories of days long past, and with it a warm sense of nostalgia. Although a smaller museum, this is one where you can still spend a good couple hours.

            -By Phillip Storm, Arts Correspondent, VisitMuseums.com

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Tate Modern Review

            The Tate Modern features Britain's most extensive collection of modern art, and in fact is the most visited modern art gallery in the world. The museum itself features a fitting modern design, with sleek white walls and long escalators to help you traverse the museum's four floors. At the Tate you can explore a vast collection of modern and temporary art dating from 1900 to the present. Whereas art from before this time period typically consisted of traditional paintings and sculptures, the Tate Modern features art that includes installations, artist rooms, and text-based art in addition to the aforementioned paintings and sculptures. These different forms of modern art are split into eight different exhibitions and displays titled “the Lawrence Weiner Rooms”, “the Joseph Beuys Rooms”, “Structure and Clarity”, “the Gerhard Richter Rooms”, “Skirt of the Black Mouth”, “Transformed Visions”, “Poetry and Dream”, and lastly “Energy and Process.”

            To get a feel for the type of art you will find yourself encountering at the Tate Modern, I suggest that you first visit the “Structure and Clarity” display. The art here focuses on a certain minimalist aesthetic that emerged in the early 1900's, one that later found its identity in the interwar period through geometrical expression and a break from any clear depiction of reality. Some of my favorites from this section include works by Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso, and René Magritte. Mondrian, who was fascinated by the abstract quality of the line, demonstrated this in his piece Composition with Yellow, Blue, and Red. The painting is incredibly simple but also pure in its depiction of lines and basic colors. Picasso has a number of notable works in this museum that include Seated Nude and Bowl of Fruit, Violin, and Bottle which can be found in this section. Seated Nude is especially interesting as a deconstructive and expressive view of the traditional nude painting. Here, the woman is an unrecognizable collection of geometric planes that leaves her looking cold and mechanical. However, she still retains the pose similar to a classical nude painting. René Magritte's The Anunciation is a beautifully expressive and colorful painting that shows a landscape populated with objects from everyday life, including a metal sheet with bells and a paper cut-out. The otherwise normal landscape painting is infused with a dreamlike and surreal quality. The art here gives a solid introduction to what you might typically define as modern art: abstract, surreal, and sometimes even confusing or hard to make sense of.

            For some more beautiful modern paintings and sculptures, you should spend some time walking through the “Poetry and Dream” gallery on floor 2 and the “Transformed Visions” gallery on floor 3. “Poetry and Dream” focuses on surrealism and the art and ideologies that diverged and sprung from that field of art. Many of the paintings here deal with dream-like imagery. A couple of really interesting pieces from this section are Max Ernst's Celebes and Giorgio de Chirico's The Uncertainty of the Poet. Both pieces showcase odd juxtapositions, dark color tones, and seemingly random images drawn together to create a puzzle for you to solve. You can spend quite some time trying to extract meaning from these pieces, and your interpretation will almost certainly differ from the person next to you. In the “Transformed Visions” gallery you will experience different visions of traditional art subjects like figures and landscapes. For example, the paintings Water Lilies by Claude Monet and Yacht Approaching the Coast by Joseph Mallord William Turner both depict obscure visions of real world objects. We know what they are supposed to look like, but through the lens of these artists we get a different interpretation on their canvas.

Tate Modern Museum, London

            For a different type of gallery, you should see the “Energy and Process” exhibition on floor 4, which attempts to look at different artists' interest in transformation and natural forces. The work here features less paintings and more art that blurs the line between art and objects from day-to-day life through film, photography, and installations. Three interesting pieces from this section that are designed to make you think and hopefully provoke a response from you are Spacial Concept 'Waiting,' Violent Incident, and Untitled (Living Sculpture). The first piece is an unpainted canvas with a slash in the middle of it, the second is a series of videos aligned together depicting incidents of meaningless violence with different pairs of people, and the last is a work of aluminum hanging from the wall that recalls the image of a jellyfish. What do these all mean? That is for you to decide. But each piece will definitely cause you to think. Or you may just say “Is this even art?” and walk out (if so, then the artist has done their job though).

Energy and Process, Tate Modern

            If you are willing to expand your definition of art beyond traditional notions of beauty and what you find to normally be aesthetically pleasing, then you will find the Tate Modern to be an interesting and unique experience. You won't find art like this in another museum in London, so I recommend everyone at least give this museum a chance, and who knows you might end up liking what you see here.

            -By Phillip Storm, Arts Correspondent VisitMuseums.com

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