Art Appreciation

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This group meets on the third Thursday of the month.

February 15th 2024

Wyndham Lewis Workshop 1914

The Vorticists

The turbulence of the early 20th century was reflected in revolutionary artistic movements not only in Europe, but in Great Britain too . Cubists in France, Expressionists in Germany, Futurists in Italy, Rayonists in Russia and the Vorticist group here. Young artists, then as now, wanted to challenge the establishment and break new ground.

January 18 2024

Four Cubists from Ukraine, Switzerland, Russia and Spain .

Three of them studied and spent time in Paris as part of the Cubist circle we are so familiar with. They demonstrate the universality of the early 20th century art movement. We will discuss their influences and look at how they spanned the whole range of Expressionism. Fauvism, Cubism and Orphism, adding their own distinctive stamp and claiming their place in early 20thcentury art.

Alice Bailly Switzerland

Sonia Delauney Russia, now Ukraine

María Blanchard Spain

Natalia Goncharova Russia

October 19th

The German Expressionists – Die Brücke (The Bridge)

Schmidt Rottluff woman with a bag

Ernst Kirchner Berlin street 1910

Eric Heckel White House 1908

The impressionists were breaking boundaries in art but the expressionists were making political and revolutionary protest.

The manifesto of 1906 stated

‘we want to achieve freedom of life and action against the well established older forces’.

In art this freedom involved blending elements of old German art and African and South Pacific tribal art, with post-impressionism and fauvism to create a distinctive modern style”

September 21 2023

Fauvism

Viaduct at L’Estaque 1908 Braque
Henri Matisse
The Green line
Henri Matisse
Self Portrait

Last year we started our journey with the founding group of French Impressionists, looking in some detail at the paintings of Manet, Morisot, Degas, Pissarro and Renoir.

The Impressionist Mary Cassatt brought us to the American painters, and others working outside France who do not always have the prominence of the French artists. British painters included Whistler and Sisley’s Penarth and Gower paintings.

With Post Impressionists, we have touched on Paul Cezanne, Henri Rousseau, Camille Pissarro and Georges Seurat – all big personalities who deserve more time in the future.

We finished the year with The Glasgow girls – long over-shadowed by the Boys (Rennie Mackintosh), and then going to some Welsh artists – Sisley of course, but also some early industrial artists such as George Childs and Penry Williams. Finally we studied and visited Frank Brangwyn’s Empire Panels in Swansea.

March 2024

Thursday 21st March

10:00 – 11:00
Art Appreciation

Gwen John Exhibition in Bath

Members will travel by train, car or bus and meet at the Holburne Museum, Bath. Further details nearer the time

April 2024

Thursday 18th April

13:00 – 14:00
Art Appreciation

Visit to The Brangwyn Empire Panels in The Guildhall, Swansea.

Originally painted for the Royal Gallery of the Palace of Westminster, in honour of the Peers and their sons who died in WW1. They were thought to be too colourful for that setting, but were snapped up for Swansea’s new Guildhall in 1934

The Empire Panels in the Brangwyn Hall towered above us. Wonderfully vivid colours and a reminder of how the British saw the Empire in the early 20th century

We were shown the first panel submitted to the Palace of Westminster, now behind glass in a committee room. It depicts North Africa with date palms, lush plants and animals.

We found the most interesting pictures in a nearby corridor. They were smaller studies, squared up ready to be transferred onto the huge final panels. We could clearly see the progression of Brangwyn’s ideas as he included the details of people, plants and animals.

Cardiff