The original purpose of my visit yesterday, aside from celebrating my birthday, was to visit the Edward Hopper exhibition. Unfortunately, it being a Saturday and all, I was too late to miss the queues and could not fashion enough time before my visit to the National Film Theatre to see Nightnawks etc.
Coincidentally, or rather not, given the position of Tate Modern in the general scheme of free things to do on a Saturday afternoon in London (or: where to be seen with your friends such that the adjectives "trendy" and "cool" can be applied to you, especially if you have an uneducated disdain for anything challenging and lacking of any immediate benefit short of having to actually think about something), the very stylish Stephen Bayley considers the discussion of "High Art" over "mere" illustration:
...in the week that an exhibition of the American realist painter Edward Hopper looks to become London's summer blockbuster, the final, fiery solution for a pile of half-baked BritArt has given us the benefit of reviewing an old argument about what's art and what's 'mere' illustration...On a different floor, I was lucky enough to see some more by the Italian artist Alberto Giacommetti. I first saw some of his work in the Sainsbury family collection at the University of East Anglia and was bowled over by his style. I think I am attracted to the darker, pessimistic art that Giacommetti seems to represent and noted down plenty of other works that I was drawn to, such as Rita Donagh's long meadow (1982), George Baselitz's Gothic Maidens series and Franz Kline's Meryon (1960-1).
Edward Hopper's curious magic, 'riveted to reality's image', in Langston Hughers' words, was to be both illustrator and artist, to be both high and low. He uses the framing, composition and lighting of the media to create unforgettable images. That he captures them in traditional oil paint adds a satisfying layer of complexity to images defined by a trade sensibility. And if Hopper oil paintings have, in turn, enjoyed success as posters, it is because in the 20th century the poster easily surpassed painting on canvas as a test for artistic invention. Say what you like about Analytical Cubism, they do not make posters out of Georges Graque.
There was also a very good room on Cubism and its legacy, reaffirming my delight at the mathematical shapes and tricks used to wonderful effect that I find very pleasing, as well as a re-acquaintance with Jackson Pollock's famous Summertime number 9A (1948), revealing the delights of chaos and fractals a full 25 years before the concepts had even been invented.
Note: links may not work once collection is changed.
