Visiting the Tate
Gallery (London) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
Laurent,
Florence, and I ate breakfast together before Laurent went to work with his
English consultant colleagues.
I
love English breakfasts with broiled tomato halves, piles of bacon slices, and
over easy eggs made correctly. (I cannot
make over easy eggs, so I like ordering them in restaurants.)
When
Laurent left for work, I washed Florence up.
She likes a little toast and lots of jelly. I wanted her to be cute for touring around
London Town in her stroller throne. I
wanted to look cute in my mini skirt and cool sunglasses.
We
took the Underground (Subway) and transferred at the Mile End Station. Mile End is a nice place to transfer when you
have a baby, because you can walk from one platform to another.
When
I arrived at the Tate Gallery, though, there was a large stairway to climb with
no handicap access elevator or ramp that I could push Florence’s stroller up.
I
picked Florence and her stroller up and hauled them both up the steps. I bruised my legs in the process and laughed
about my injuries all for the sake of art.
Once
inside the Tate Gallery, I did notice that the Tate Galley had diaper-changing
facilities in the bathrooms. I made sure
toddler Florence had fresh undies and went off to view the galleries.
The
Tate Gallery specializes in exhibiting art from the 1850s to the present.
The
Clare Foundation Gallery inside the Tate houses the immense Turner
Collection. You can trace Turner’s
development as an artist in this collection, if you want.
People
who like Impressionism are usually ga-ga over Turner, because they see him as
being influential on Impressionism, especially Monet. I thought Turner used too much yellow to show
his ships in churning ocean storms.
All
of his works were overly varnished, which makes you squint looking at them from
all angles of vision.
Navy,
merchant marine, people who grew up on coasts, or who have ancestors who were ship
captains like buying Turner-inspired art of ships churning in the sea, marinas
with boats, and fish market scenes to remind them of the hardships their
families have overcome to obtain money and skills.
The
Pre-Raphaelite Room at the Tate Gallery had paintings by Rossetti and
Burne-Jones. The Pre-Raphaelites loved
women with wavy, auburn hair. (I thought
of Neil Young’s song Cinnamon Girl when I looked at these paintings.)
I
noted in my journal: Brunettes finally
get their day in the sun. Blondes and
red heads have monopolized film and TV forever.
One
of the modern works of art in the Tate caught my eye: David Buery’s sculpture consisting of stone
fragments strewn about the floor. I
wanted to diagram this work from a bird’s eye view.
“What
fun to make this,” I thought.
I
like the Tate Gallery. Modern art is
mostly protest art. All modern artists
are classically trained to draw and paint like Raphael, but choose to sell
mounds of feces and plaster of Paris bodies in jail installation scenes for a
reason usually.
Buyers
know protest art reaps millions later, if you look at Basquiat’s paintings,
Sark’s Journals (not yet, but it’s coming), and Rauschenberg’s Drip Paintings.
Rauschenberg
and his widow ended up being richer than the artist’s agent.
There
are two books that are very good at helping Renaissance art lovers learn to
understand, if not love modern art: The
Painted Word and From Bauhaus to our House by Tom Wolfe.
Buying
protest art helps artists survive and their dealers who often support
them. However, buyers who invest in
protest art without supporting solutions to the problems depicted are also
“suits” and “establishment” benefitting from tax laws to write off champagne
and nourishing appetizers at buffet dinners for openings or “vernissages” as
business expenses.
By
Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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