Round up

December is such an odd month I've decided not to try and have formal days off this time. So there was no formal day off Tuesday though I did read a book about Picasso and dipped into Northanger Abbey, which I am presently reading. On Monday afternoon Eleri and I went for afternoon tea to the Halo bar and restaurant in the Hilton Hotel, Angel, Islington - a birthday present from back in September to Eleri from a couple in the church. (That same couple were involved in chasing after our dog when he got out and having tea with us later in the week.) On Monday evening I had a committee meeting in Ashford, Middlesex - first meet up in an age. Wednesday morning was our fraternal wander over the heath and in the evening it was the midweek meeting. On Thursday night Eleri and I watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles which neither of us had ever seen all the way through. Friday morning, I was visiting a couple who have begun to come to the church and today we are off to Folkestone for a farewell meeting for Reuben and Cathy Saywell. The rest of the time has gone on preparations for midweek and Sunday I guess.

10 Quotes on art by well known artists

1. The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery

Francis Bacon

2. A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art

Paul Cezanne

3. Art is made to disturb. Science reassures. There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain.

Georges Braque

4. Great art picks up where nature ends.

Marc Chagall

5. Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it./ Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.

Salvador Dali

6. Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.

Edgar Degas

7. The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real.

Lucian Freud

8. If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.

Edward Hopper

9. Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.

Pablo Picasso

10. Painting is the most beautiful of lies

Kees van Dongen

10 Most Famous Paintings Ever

This is debatable, of course, but I'd say
1. Mona Lisa, Leonardo Da Vinci
2. Starry night, Vincent Van Gogh
3. Water Lily Pond (with bridge), Claude Monet
4. Girl with the pearl earring, Jan Vermeer
5. Nightwatch, Rembrandt van Rijn
6. Guernica, Pablo Picasso
7. The scream, Edvard Munch
8. The persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali
9. Bal du moulin de la Galette, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
10. American Gothic, Grant Wood
(The picture includes Whistler's mother and Magritte's Son of Man as extras)

Courtauld Gallery

Last Tuesday I was at the Courtauld Gallery in Somerset House, another gem tucked away in London's teeming streets. It was another trip with the History of Art Class I've been with this year at the King's Cross Working Men's College. It's normally £6 to get in at the Courtauld but worth it. The current exhibition is Picasso 1901. It's good to see paintings all from one (crucial) year. The paintings are hung in two different rooms and there is certainly a noticeable difference between the two as Picasso explored different styles. The main gallery has this famous Manet which we enjoyed spending time on and several other paintings mostly of the impressionist and post-impressionist schools but plenty of Rubens and others too. More here.