Febrary 2: I forgot about my visit to the Tate Britain!

In my excitement over Spring Break, I completely forgot to talk about my visit to the Tate Britain Museum yesterday. Since today was pretty boring (cruddy weather and class), I'll just post all my lovely pictures from the museum. I went with my London Museums class, which was nice because the professor basically gave us a little guided tour. The Tate Britain is a museum that houses British works from the past few centuries. It's relatively modern, meaning that most of its art was finished from the year 1500 on. One of the main highlights of the museum is a room displaying the work of British artist Sir John Everett Millais, who did the super-famous Ophelia and Lady of Shalott paintings, among others. I was very excited to see these, as I had studied both in different classes in the past few years at Madison, so I was extremely disappointed to learn that the Millais room was closed for one evening only for some sort of fund-raising event, so there were barriers up in front of all the entrances. We were able to sneak a quick peek, but I will definitely have to go back some other time.

My favorite rooms in the museum are those holding the works of JWM Turner, a British painter from the late 1700s to early 1800s. His landscapes and classical paintings are BEAUTIFUL! Since Erin and I love Greek mythology so much, his work is even more fun, since it often depicts classical myths and figures on incredibly gorgeous landscapes. My favorite is a depiction of the story of Apollo and the Sybil. Apollo said he would give the Cumaean Sybil a wish if she would become his lover, and she wished for as many years of life as she could hold grains of sand, but then the Sybil refused to be the god's lover so as punishment, Apollo granted her prolonged life but not eternal youth. I love the painting because first, it's beautiful, and second, there's a bunny in it, front and center! I have no clue why Turner would include the little white bunny rabbit in this painting of so serious a myth, but I really like it. Anyway, here is the painting, and several others that I thought worth remembering:

Pretty landscape!

 Apollo and the Sybil with a handfull of sand

White bunny! (You can just see it in the very center of the full painting, just to the right of the figures, under the shadows of the trees)

The Tate Britain

This one is absolutely adorable! It's called "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose" by John Singer Sargent, from 1885. The little girls are just so cute!

This one is an incredibly famous Mondrian that is in every art history book.

Another by Turner, this time showing Dido and Aeneas, a very sad story, but the light and color in the painting is lovely.

A very different subject by Turner, showing the Battle of Trafalgar and poor old Horatio Nelson

I really like these fairies by Theodore Von Holst from 1840