Again, I managed to combine two recent hospital appointments in London with some art appreciation. A few weeks ago I visited Charles Dickens' House in Doughty Street and enjoyed looking at
Dickens' Dream (1875) by Robert W. Buss. Buss died before he could finish the painting, but I rather like the way the characters immediately above Dickens are in colour while the others are merely sketched in. It conveys a dreamlike sensation of some things seeming very clear and "real" while others hover like spectres in the background:
Yesterday I went to the Tate Britain and wandered through vast rooms and long corridors of paintings. John William Waterhouse's
The Lady of Shalott (1888) has long been a favourite - I used to have a postcard of it on my bedroom wall. Literary themes appeal to me, and the colours and composition are beautiful:
Herbert Draper's
The Lament for Icarus (1898) also caught my eye. Such wonderful textures, and a strong sense of sorrow. I first encountered the story of Icarus in Enid Blyton's
Tales of Long Ago.
Another one I found striking was
Alleluia (1896) by Thomas Cooper Gotch. So many innocent faces, earnest yet joyful, and colourful fabrics:
I liked
Merry-Go-Round (1916) by Mark Gertler because of the vivid colours and stylised design:
From a previous visit a few years ago, I remembered John Singer Sargent's
Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1885-6). Unfortunately it's currently out on loan but it's full of atmosphere and captures the feeling of day turning into dusk: