| Status: | Active, open to new members |
| Leader: |
Robert Sedgley
|
| Group email: | History & Appreciation of Art group historyofart@u3aoliva.org |
| When: | Monthly on Tuesday afternoons 5:00 PM-7:00 PM |
| Venue: | Biblioteca de L'Envic |
| Cost: | Free |
The activity of the group is to further our understanding and appreciation of art through an illustrated talk from the leader and with contributions from the group. All are welcome; whether expert or not come and join in the conversation, find out more about the wonderful and surprising world of art.
We have now been running for about twelve years and have come in our chronological survey up to the beginning of the Twentieth Century, and are looking at the revolution in the visual arts that we call Modernism. For new members who wish to acquire a background understanding of what went before I recommend reading the notes of previous meetings. These are complete from the earliest paintings on the walls of caves, up to the early moderns: Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism and Futurism. However, this is by no means compulsory – we are not an exam group!
All are welcome; whether expert or not come and join in the conversation, find out more about the wonderful and surprising world of art!
Leader: Robert Sedgley
Next meeting
The next meeting will be on Tuesday 3rd of March
David Bomberg (1890-1957) was a significant painter associated with, but never a signed-up member of, the Vorticist group before the first World War. Following the horrors of the first 'mechanical' war he, along with many artists, backtracked on the representation of the human figure as a machine, a movement known as the "return to order." In his subsequent work he developed a highly personal vision of the very traditional subjects of landscape, portraits and flowers. However, largely overlooked during his lifetime he is now regarded as a major painter of the British School. He was also an influential teacher: Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff and Dennis Creffield are notable amongst his students.
"Art in Focus" is where we will consider a work of art in greater detail and context. This month's painting will be Jan van Eyck's Madonna of Chancellor Rolin,
Style is ephemeral – Form is eternal”"– The Bomberg Papers
"I appeal to the Sense of Form. In some of the work […] I completely abandon Naturalism and Tradition. I am searching for an Intenser expression. In other work i….] I use naturalistic Form, I have stripped it of all irrelevant matter. I look upon nature, while I live in a steel city. Where decoration happens, it is accidental. My object is the construction of Pure Form. I reject everything in painting that is not Pure Form. I hate the colours of the East, the Modern Mediævalist, and the Fat Man of the Renaissance." – Bomberg, 1914
“Speaking generally Art endevours to reveal what is true and needs to be free.”– Bomberg
“Drawing demands freedom, freedom demands liberty to expand in space – this is progress."– The Bomberg Papers
"I approach drawing solely for structure.”–The Bomberg Papers
"Good judgement is through good drawing – from the nervous system to the sensory of the brain it is the combination of eurythmics, euphony and poetry, and when the good draughtsman draws, the muses come to dance. Then the imagination is given full play, and design happens. They then become the Muses"– The Bomberg Papers