Love & Desire. A rare mother and daughter’s day. I am meeting mum and Michelle here at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA). I arrive early though and before they arrive too, I park the car and wander through the sculpture garden.
Watched and watching – the sculptures here have always struck me as rather eerie, more so if they are watching you enjoy dinner in the award winning restaurant. this morning it is still cool in the dappled light of the tall gum surrounds and only slightly misty as the heads float, unseeing, on the water.
There is also the Cones. This installation has always been here as far as I can remember, it is a striking feature of the garden and is the first thing I think of when I have the NGA in mind. Unlike the Cones and the slit drums, icons of Vanuatu’s art and culture, which look perfectly at home here, Rodin’s Burghers of Calais, stand silently, uncomplaining of their harsh surroundings, so different to where they came from.
I wander into the large cement building, such a feature of the landscape of my childhood. My sister studied art at university and spent a lot of time here. I studied law and spent some time next door, at the High Court, and a fair amount of time at the National Library, a bit further along the lake. The NGA never really struck a chord with me at the time. I never liked the harshness of the building and dreamt of the more romantic of its sisters – the Louvre, the National Gallery (London), the Vatican Museum and other, more gentle, European counterparts. That is until I have been overseas again in 2007 for a short stint in London during which time I rediscovered the delights of galleries and museums of all types. When I did return to Australia I was then not living in Canberra and so, was limited in the opportunities to visit. Perhaps only then did I appreciate something that had been there all my life.
Still, here I am today, traveling up the escalator into the cavernous interior. I like the inside space. It is cool and solemn. I also like the exhibitions here. They are always extremely well curated and offer bite size chunks of art and culture that might be otherwise too spread out, too overwhelming or simply too far away to enjoy otherwise.
I buy our tickets and when mum and Shell arrive, we head into the exhibition and await the tour. I also love a good tour. It’s a bit like a degustation at a restaurant. All the good bits with little effort. When I have time I don’t mind being lost in a gallery but today is Boxing Day. I’m a little tired so the tour suits. And so we begin: Love & Desire – Pre Raphaelite Masterpieces from the Tate.
Now as the name suggests, the Pre-Raphaelites have something to do with that oh so famous Italian Renaissance artist (and ninja turtle if you are a parent and/or a child of the ’80’s) Raphael (1483-1520) and other masters of the time. However, the name does not suggest that the Pre Raphaelite movement began, well, post Raphael. So where exactly does the name come from?
In mid 19th Century London, three students of the Royal Academy of Arts rebelled to reject the Academy’s conventional training based on none other than our Italian Renaissance masters. The students desired more relevant and truthful art, believing the classical poses and elegant compositions of Raphael in particular had been a corrupting influence on the academic teaching of art. The three students, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti were joined by four others James Collison, Frederic George Stephens, William Michael Rosetti and Thomas Woolner to form the seven member Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB).
The PRB rejected the style of the Renaissance masters and ‘introduced extreme detail and raw truthfulness to religious, literary and historical stories and symbols which allowed the viewer to decode deeper messages. The art of the Pre Raphaelites expressed the rapid change, hopes and anxieties of a society in the process of modernization, and its impact on the world today’. Although controversial in their technique and bohemian lifestyles they nevertheless attracted followers and became internationally famous.
The exhibition is split into rooms with different themes, follow the link to read more about some of my favorites :
The Pre-Raphaelites changed the face of painting at a time when thoughts and ideas about beauty, faith and science were changing the world they lived in. Photography was in its infancy and transport was being reinvented for the masses. In many ways, their narrative borrows from a reflection of their worlds in terms of the attention to detail and visual narratives.
It may not be as romantic as the Romantics, as restrained as the Renaissance style or as luminous as the Impressionists but the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood certainly produced a body of work that is in essence bold, vivid, lustrous, desperate and sensual all at once. Love and desire indeed.
Would I Return?
Yes. Although the Love & Desire exhibition runs 14 December 2018 – 28 April 2019 at the National Gallery of Australia. I’m not sure I’ll get another chance.
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