Appropriate Subject for Work of Art

The Stacks digital photography

I went to the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, VA to see "London Calling: Victorian Paintings from the Royal Holloway Collection."  It was a wonderful treat to see the paintings in the collection -most by painters who were unfamiliar to me.  Here is what the website said:  "The collection on display at the Chrysler ranges from wall-spanning masterpieces to contemporary street life scenes; from landscapes or marine studies to great historical events. It's an exhibition of great depth and scope, and it's the first time it has been on display outside of England."  

Some of the sixty or so paintings touched my heart more than the others.  'Applicants for Admission to casual Ward ' 1874 -(oil  95.8" x 53.9")  by Sir Luke Fildes is about  poverty that was the result of Industrial Revolution in Britain. I was taken aback when I read the curator's notes next to the painting : "Although Filde's painting created a popular sensation at the Royal Academy in 1874, critics were divided as to whether so direct a confrontation with human misery was an appropriate subject for work of Art."  I am glad artists don't think so and Goya, Picasso and many many others felt a moral obligation to record the atrocities big and small.  Paintings by Sir John Everett Millais of  very young princes and princess caught in the middle of fierce politics or of the young girl being punished in Sympathy by Briton Riverie are indeed gems that evoke a strong reaction from the viewer.

I also became aware of the dark periods in history that I had not come  across in my readings until now: in John Baghold Burgess's  Licensing of Beggars in Spain, Edwin Longsden Long's The Supplicants: Expulsion of Gypsies from Spain  and other paintings by various artists about prison life, of Babylonian marriage market, of kidnappings of young males for the army etc.! It was interesting to read about another painting An Anxious Moment  that critics of Briton Riverie accused him of 'anthropomorphizing' the animals in his works! There were a also few stunning landscapes and marine paintings. I wish I could write about each of sixty paintings in the show because of how they opened my eyes to history, hardships, beauty and nature. My knowledge about artists and critics is surely much broader than before.

On lighter note, as I was leaving the museum just before closing, the Court area near the entrance was being transformed to host a wedding. The setting sun was streaming over the chairs stacked up high ready to be taken down and lined up for the guests. Of course, I couldn't resist whipping out my camera.