Return To Tate Britain

We returned to the Tate Britain August 20th for some unfinished business, namely the Rothko and Turner and 20th century and contemporary stuff we hadn't seen the previous visit. All this we would conjoin with an early dinner at the George inn near London Bridge, after walking more of the Southwark. It has been brought to my attention that Joseph Mallard William Turner has been well enough represented in my posts from London, so I will restrain myself in posting further pix of his paintings. A bit.

I think it is somehow telling that my camera, and presumably 
others, always has difficulty focusing on works of art like this
"mural" by Rothko; never could find anything to focus on except
the floor

Important background on the Seagram Murals; and
I thought it was because you had to drink half a
bottle of Seagram's to find anything of interest in
these paintings; but, hey, he was a Turner fan, 
and wanted his works to rest near Turner's, so
there must be something...

Turner self-poritrait in 1799, age 24, on the
occasion of having been admitted to the Royal
Academy; I'm hardly an expert, but this is the
only portrait I know of by Turner, whether of
himself of someone else 

There is a whole room of some of the paintings found in his studio
after his death in 1851, regarded at the time as unfinished; what Turner
regarded as finished is a lively issue...Breakers on a Flat Beach, 
1835-40

Entrance of the Meuse, 1819; described as a "visual pun": the
Dutch ship has run aground and lost its cargo of oranges...the
House of Orange had suffered catastrophic financial losses in
the Napoleonic wars...

Holy Family, 1803; in the early 1800s Turner was attempting to
move from associate to full member of the Royal Academy and 
attempting to please the membership by doing more work in the
"Grand Masters" style; this is thought to be after a now lost Titian
he would have seen at the Louvre; it is one of very, very few
paintings on a Biblical theme by Turner

The Tenth Plague of Egypt, 1802; ditto

Rome from the Vatican. Raffaelle, Accompanied by La Fornarina,
Preparing His Picture for the Decoration of the Loggia, 1820;
as I have noted, Turner was not into the whole brevity thing, but
he did admire Raphael

Very early Turner, Moonlight, a Study at Millbank, 1797; 
Millbank became the location of the Tate Britain

Reclining Venus, 1828; nudes are almost as rare as Biblical
subjects for Turner; fortunately

Having exceeded our quota of Turners for the day, we have now
moved on to the more recent stuff...

More from the "I could have done that school"; as I learned in
the 1980s, I could not not do that...

I'm guessing this is supposed to make us reflect on the nature of

art, or possibly other things; Vicki did not get sucked in

David Hockney, A Bigger Splash, 1967; I do like Hockney, because 

of his subjects, his use of acrylics, and his use of a Mac for some of 

his later work

Sculpture; something about gender roles; the
steps and tool box are lined in red velvet...

I don't much care for Henry Moore sculpture but
was impressed by this wartime sketch, Tube
Shelter Perspective, 1941