The Van de Veldes: Greenwich, Art and the Sea

My last art post was about the simply awful Hogarth exhibition at the Tate, which was just terrible, having no interest in art or Hogarth or historical accuracy. So it was some trepidation that I went over to the Queen's House in Greenwich to see the new National Maritime Museum exhibition on the Van de Veldes: Greenwich, Art and the Sea.

I need not have worried as the NMM have aced it with a fascinating exhibition that shows real knowledge and interest in art, history, the sea and sailing, with an amazing set of exhibits in a stunning building.

The Queen's House is an excellent location because that was where the Van de Veldes actually worked, with a studio in the basement. It is also a gorgeous building:

The Van de Veldes were the great Dutch artists that were lured to London with promises of £ 100 per year and went on to document some of the great naval battles between the English and the, er, Dutch, which is some what ironic really.

Indeed, one of the most amazing exhibits was a small drawing of the battle of Solebay in which King James II and Van de Veldes the elder draw their recollections of the positions at 2 pm - as both were present, but on different sides!

The star of the exhibition is the magnificent giant tapestry (top image) which shows the battle in amazing detail. You can see a video of it being hung here after its recent restoration - which is well worth a view, if only to get a sense of scale. It's huge - completely filling one wall all the way to the ceiling.

Van de Veldes the elder often worked in graphite which resists water, and so can be used, as he was wont to do, on the deck of a boat at sea, sometimes in the middle of the battle. The NMM has some of his sketches in its archive - the largest collection of Van de Veldes in the world.

The other benefit of using graphite was it could be used to make a mirror image copy, so template ships could be pasted into larger scenes, and then adjusted accordingly.

There was amazing attention to detail: all the rigging looked right. Ships, wind, sails, anchors, light - all were as they should be. Look at this one, and notice the ship heading into wind having transported the king to his flagship:

Each painting or drawing was just exquisite:

It reminded me a bit of the Turner and the Masters exhibition, back in the day when the Tate was actually interested in art. That looked at how Turner was inspired by greats such as Van de Veldes and had some examples where very similar scenes were painted, deliberately. For Turner said that seeing Van de Veldes the younger had "made me a painter".

A fantastic exhibition in a beautiful building, and what's more its free!

If you're in London and interested in art and the sea, its well worth a trip down to Greenwich.

More information on the NMM web site here.

Happy Christmas 2018!

Happy Christmas to all!

This is the seasonally decorated Cutty Sark in Greenwich. How great does that look?

Tall ship at night, by Greenwich Old Naval College

This round of visit of tall ships to London seems a lot lower key than previous years. I really struggled to find web sites that gave the firework times and nothing about a parade of sail.

Visit Greenwich didn't seem to know (or were unwilling to say) when the fireworks were but I found the necessary information on the PLA's Notices To Mariners.

The fireworks too were a bit of a let-down, as early in the evening (so the sky not dark), not by Greenwich's Old Naval College but by Deptford Creek and with a whopping great cruise ship as foreground rather than any pretty tall ship:

Couple of factors seemed to be behind this, in particular the cruise ship company sponsoring the Greenwich Music Time being held actually in the Old Naval College meant the fireworks had to be moved elsewhere.

Given I really enjoyed the Noel Gallagher gig I can't really complain about this and did manage to snap one ship slip by (top picture) while listening to whoever was playing that night.

One Summer's Evening: Tall Ships on the Thames, Noel Gallagher at the Old Naval College Greenwich and England Victorious...

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds at the Old Naval College, Greenwich

A summer's evening with tall ships sailing by on the Thames and birds flying high overhead

A proper summer, ice cream days for weeks on end

And England 2, Sweden 0

Oh, yes!

Updated

Oh, no!

Normal service has been resumed.

Restoration of the Old Royal Naval College Painted Hall: Update

Last year I visited the Painted Hall at the Old Royal Navel College in Greenwich to see the work being done to restore this fading masterpiece. Last week I was in Greenwich visiting the National Maritime and decided to pop in for an update.

At the time of my earlier visit, the conservation work had just started and they are still hard at it (above) a year later but the end is in sight. Much of the surface has been completed and you can clearly see the changes from my photos of the eclipse graphic from last year to this year:

Last year:

This year:

All those pealing paint has been touched up and its definitely looking cleaner though there are still the odd patches that are work in progress.

Some features that had become too faint to be seen were now visible, like this face blasted by the sight of Medusa:

I think the time table is to keep working until the autumn and then there'll be the long exercise of taking down all the scaffolding (apparently it weighs as much as the Space Shuttle) before the whole thing will be revealed in 2019:

Looking forward to seeing it then in all its glory!

Tall Ships 2017 Video

I haven't posted a video for a long time but put together this short from clips taken on the trip on the Zephyr during the Tall Ships 2017.

Not that I'm going to follow Sassi's advice or anything.

What do you think?

Parade of Sail for the Tall Ships 2017

On Sunday the tall ships left Greenwich to head off into the North Sea, some heading onwards to the Rendez-Vous 2017 Tall Ships Regatta, racing from Torbay to Sines in Portugal.

The final event was a parade of sail in which all the ships went up the Thames and then back down passing the Royal Naval College, with some crewing the yards, as in the photo above.

Others went out onto the bowsprit to wave at the crowds on either side of the river:

Not all had sails up, but some did, including this caravel, the Vera Cruz:

Having sailed on Zephyr I looked out especially to see it sail by:

And then they were gone, leaving Greenwich with just the one, the Cutty Sark, frozen in its glass sea...

Tall Ship Festival 2017

For some reason I've missed most of the visits of the Tall Ships to London - partly due to busy schedule and partly being off sick. But they were visiting this Easter and everything worked out so managed to get on board one from Woolwich to Greenwich and back.

On the grounds that if you don't ask you don't get a chance I asked if I could steer and so just after the photo above (between the O2 Dome and Greenwich) to just before the Thames Barrier I was at the rather large wheel.

It was rather interesting as the river was busy with other tall ships which had to overtake or steer between, a number of naval vessels heading up river and the usual Thames Clippers zipping up and down river.

It was bit cloudy but that didn't stop it being a fun way to spend an afternoon.

The meaning of the Old Royal Naval College Painted Hall

The amazing Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College is full of amazing imagery and on my recent tour some it was explained by our guide. Alas not all was explained (or remembered) so in this post there are some diversions when I had to fill in my own stories.

Lets start with the end wall (above) and have a look at the bottom right where you can see this figure:

This is a self portrait of the artist James Thornhill. There was probably some symbolism or etiquette to explain the hand gesture but my take was he was asking to be paid.

At the centre is King George and to the left of him these children:

These were actually a big political point. The one thing that the royals have to do is have children. Other problems, including going mad, is something the system can work around. Alas the problem with William and Anne was the lack of offspring. Anne in particular had 17 children but sadly none survived.

So when the House of Hanover took over they were keen to demonstrate that this wouldn't be a problem for them.

I suspect that the globe was the standard imperial pretensions - unless it was for the children planning their gap year travels.

This scene was not explained:

I'm going with the story of how a resourceful thief bared her breast to distract the king while stealing his gold stick with jewels in it thing.

Up on the ceiling the east end had a spot of astronomy and astronomers in it. The guide asked why it was that sailors might be interested to know about the movement of the moon and I'm sure you know why to and you'd be welcome to say so in the comments section.

For example there was this figure:

This relates to the Astronomer Royals prediction of a solar eclipse, complete with date and year. It was suggested that this was a bit of a hostage to fortune as if it didn't happen and had been painted on the ceiling it would be visible for ever and ever.

Fortunately it did happen, though the date was actually "wrong" as Britain was using the old Gregorian calendar.

Nearby was this old sailor:

Apparently he was a bit of a trouble maker so the hospital wanted to find him something to keep him occupied for a bit. It was apparently successful - but only for the duration of the sitting, and then he returned to his usual drinking etc.

But its an interesting thought that some of the characters shown in these figures would have been based upon real people that walked the streets of London. So who was this woman with the owl on her head?

Curiously enough while passing the Cutty Sark on my way to the Painted Hall I saw a stand from a local bird sanctuary and they had an owl too.

Greenwich is indeed one place where you can feel connected to the long and rich history of London.

Restoring the Old Royal Naval College Painted Hall

Previously I blogged my first visit to the famous Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. The reaction was pretty much:

O! M! G!

I can see why they call it the Sistine Chapel of London. The photo above shows just one end of the hall: the ceiling is equally epic. It was painted by James Thornhill at the rather bargain price of "£7000, based on a rate of £1 per square yard for the walls and £3 per square yard for the ceilings".

But alas since completion in 1727 it has had to put up with the "old smoke" and time has not been kind, so parts look a bit like this:

How do I know this? Well it is currently being restored and they are running tours up the scaffolding to have a look up close to the ceiling:

If you follow this link to the old post there's a photo of the ceiling and you can see this figure at the top left, who is Apollo the sun god.

The guide gave a detailed description of the paintings which I've pretty much forgotten but will give it a go in the next post. I might get quite a bit wrong....