Exhibition At The Tate Britain Shows The History & Versatility Of Watercolor Painting

Written by Stan Sesser Monday, 14 May 2012 22:36

London (Wall Street Journal) - Watercolor painting thrived for centuries before oil arrived around 1500. While oil reigned, watercolor wasn't forgotten, particularly by the British landscape painters, who valued its purity of color and translucent quality, so different from sticky oils. "Watercolour," a show at the Tate Britain museum in London, plucks the art from its usual context, shows of U.K. landscape painters, and traces it back through 800 years of history, from medieval illuminated manuscripts to abstract works of modern-day artists. The museum was renamed "Tate Britain" in March 2000, before the launch of Tate Modern, since which time it has been dedicated to the display of historical and contemporary British art only.

"A lot of younger artists are taking to the medium," says Alison Smith, a curator of the Tate exhibit. "It's more accessible, a direct translation from the mind to paper. Oil takes a long time to dry; you leave it and go back to it." (Before 1500, watercolor's major alternative was tempera, with egg yolks used as the binding instead of gum arabic.)

The Tate's exhibit of more than 200 paintings runs through Aug. 21. Visitors can see an illuminated manuscript from 1200, some of the greatest British landscape paintings and botanical drawings, and an array of 20th-century watercolors by artists such as Tracey Emin, Peter Doig and David Austen that explore the inner self rather than more traditional watercolor subjects. The show, which won't travel, includes works from public and private collections throughout Europe, with a few from private U.S. collectors.

Three well-known paintings in the exhibit illustrate watercolor's strengths. J.M.W. Turner's "The Blue Rigi, Sunrise," painted in 1842, looks across Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, where the mountain becomes a conduit for reflecting light and color, showing watercolor's prized purity and translucency. In contrast, Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "The Tune of the Seven Towers" of 15 years later shows static figures garbed in rich fabrics that recall medieval paintings. He uses "lots of gum and varnish, trying to deny watercolor's transparent qualities by making it thick and heavy, giving it the appearance of something painted on wood," says Ms. Smith.




Skip a century and a half to Anish Kapoor's very different "untitled." The 56-year-old Indian-born, London-based sculptor, who also works in watercolors, has crafted an abstract black form on a swirling red background.

"In contemporary art there has been a democratization of media," says Mark Fletcher, a New York-based art consultant and former art-gallery proprietor. "For instance, photographs are no longer considered a lesser form, and watercolor would be part of that." He says the price of recent watercolors has paralleled the increases in the price of oil paintings.

Unlike oil paintings, watercolors pose a unique challenge, since they're a one-shot technique. "You use them in a pure way," says Ms. Smith. In contrast with oils, "you can't go back and correct it. You get it wrong, and you get it wrong."

Tate Britain is housed in the Tate's original premises on Millbank on the site of Millbank Prison. The front part of the building was designed by Sidney R. J. Smith with a classical portico and dome behind. Construction, undertaken by Higgs and Hill, commenced in 1893. The gallery opened on 21 July 1897 as the National Gallery of British Art, but became commonly known as the Tate Gallery, after its founder Sir Henry Tate. There have been several extensions over the years. The central sculpture gallery was designed by John Russell Pope. TheTate Britain is the national gallery of British art from 1500 to the present day. As such, it is the most comprehensive collection of its kind in the world. More recent artists include David Hockney, Peter Blake and Francis Bacon. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/

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