Rosalind Barker

 National Gallery Study Morning.

As a part time student I have the opportunity to repeat the experience of working with Colin Wiggins on The National Gallery Project.

The study morning replicated the experience of Unit 1 which I documented in detail. Mr Wiggins again commenced by focusing on perspective and religious art in the Sainsbury Wing.

This time he introduced us to The San Pier Maggiore Altarpiece by Jacopo di Cioni commissioned in 14th Century Florence.

The church showing it’s power and bling, so much gold. I loved the anecdote about the apprentices hammering a gold coin untill it was reduced to the delicacy of gold leaf. They had the poetic belief that gold was solidified sunlight and silver, solidified moonlight. The worshippers were kept at a distance from the altarpiece and viewing it in candle light must have been in awe.

We were able to stand inches way from the portions of the altarpiece held by the National Gallery, there are 14 scattered around the world.The intricacy of all the gold halos are actually carved not painted.

We were all found rather ignorant of the displayed saints. I could guess a few not because of my intense C of E upbringing but because of ‘Saints Alive’, Michael Land’s residence at The National Gallery last year. (See Unit 1)

Kneeling in front of the 14th Century altarpiece to capture the peasants perspective.

In retrospect I think this painting gave me the idea of taking a rubbing with tin foil to replicate the leather tooled covers of my 19th Century illustrated encyclopaedias.

This time my thoughts on the day were very much about texture and glowing jewel like paintings.

My Selected painting for The National Gallery Project

I adore this tiny painting, ‘ Exhibition of a Rhinoceros at Venice’ Pietro Longhi 1751, my image has failed to capture it’s enamel like textural luminosity.The animal appears docile and bored by the revellers and is focused on ingesting and excreting its food. Although the carnival crowd are standing next to a rare exotic rhinoceros their attention appears firmly fixed on the artist and us the viewer.

There is a second version of this painting  entitled ‘The Rhinoceros in Venice’ 1751 in the Ca’Rezzonico, Venice. There are minimal alterations and additions the central figure is unmasked, causing us to question if he commissioned the work and the figure on the far right remains uncloaked and unmasked.There is a sign hanging on the wall

‘ a true portrait of the rhinoceros brought to Venice in 1751 and painted by Pietro Longhi as a commission from the nobleman Giovanni Grimani dei Servi: Venetian Patrician’ p178

I instantly thought about Albrecht Durer’s Rhinoceros created as a woodcut from a written description in 1515, the animal having drowned in transit.

Googling Durer rhinosceros images: I was struck by the colour, size combinations of the 16th century images on the high tech computer screen.

You get different search engine results on different days.

Thinking about these drawings and the fact they were accomplished from a written source made me want to connect to the texture of the animal in my drawings for the National Gallery. I intend to work with frottage.

‘Durer and his Drawings’ book by Christine White in Wimbledon library.

Other artists inspired by rhinoceros:

Salvador Dali working in collaboration in the 1940’s with photographer Phillipe Halsman who introduced a sharp focus to his subjects.

Rinoceronte vestido con puntillas 1956 Bronze   Salvador Dali.  Puerto José Banús, Marbella, Spain     Image © Manuel González Olaechea y Franco

My wish would be to  frottage a life size rhinoceros but even if I could,  it would’t fit in the NG Drawing room?  I need the vital statistics of a rhino!

I discovered the Indian rhinoceros, Pietro Longhi’s subject in his painting, has a whimsical book of her seventeen years touring Europe in a wooden carriage drawn by eight horses. Her name was Clara. I ordered a copy.

Clara had well publicised weigh ins for the delight of spectators, she was six feet from the ground to the middle of her back and twelve feet both nose to tail and in circumference. P155.

Clara was tame having imprinted onto a human as a baby, she was the fifth rhinoceros to be seen by Europeans.. Her rarity value was fully realised by her owner who patented multiple souvenirs of china, glass, prints  and paintings now housed in international museums.

Souvenir prints. ‘Clara’ sold by Douwe Mout Van de Meer. image is ‘Gasthof “Zum Pfau” in Mannheim 1747

Promotional material for Clara’s tours sometimes served a duel purpose, here she is incorporated into a new medical textbook. Engraving by Jan Wandeelar.

I  found Clara was painted life size by Jean- Baptiste Oudry     ‘Clara in Paris’ 1749 Staatliches Museum

How to frottage a Rhino: 1st find a rhino!

London Zoo no longer have a rhino house it has all been moved to Whipsnade Zoo in the midlands.  Find a taxidermy rhino. I contacted The Horniman Museum and double checked they hadn’t got one lurking in their store room by e-mailing Mark Fairnington who has worked with their taxidermy animals as subject. He suggested The Natural History Museum.

The rhino are not taxidermy specimens but made of resins to replicate their folded hyde, which apparently has a soft skin like texture and is easily damaged, these looked more like the hard plastic toy rhinos in the gift shop.

I now have the statistics and the realisation of how big a rhinoceros is.

I experimented with frottage of a rhino on a small scale by drawing her actual size from the painting and then using household items to duplicate the mixed textures on the hyde. Leather book covers, a handbag and a pair of boots.

By scanning the drawing and printing onto clear film projected via an an OHP I was able to gage the potential effect. I did different scaled drawings of baby and full sized adult.

Estimating Clara based on full size of H6 ‘ x L 12’

I also questioned the effect of using multiple overlaid small scaled drawings to build the full sized rhino. all standing on one another reminiscent of the computer screen but rhino shaped.

My son lives opposite ‘Save The Rhino’ in London and this emerged, I went out and talked to them, they have a whole herd for fund raising.This rhino is running the marathon! National Gallery project as performance piece?

 Another visit to ‘Miss Clara’ to examine the finer detail. 

Having returned to the painting I am having fresh ideas of how I want to present the outcome of my research. Its back to commemorating the bling of all those gold frames, the essence of  what is a suitable attire for a painting for the National collection. My selected painting is small and it has discrete framing but the colour is exquisite and the content of the work represents all that is exotic and outrageous in the both the depicted humans and animals.

I am going to work purely with graphite on translucent paper (to mimic the translucency of the painting) and comply with the scale of the original work but the subjects will be separated and the presentation in the space will use mirrors, the floor and skirting board.

The three elements of the painting, the rhinoceros, the Venetian carnival crowd and the frame

The carnival crowd have been drawn freehand and then their costumes rubbed from lace, wool,linen etc.

The three men on the front row are wearing the white unisex Bauta mask. The woman on the back row is wearing the black oval Domino mask that is held in place by a mouth button, rendering its wearer mute. The remaining characters are fresh faced but the figure of the woman in the centre of the painting is wearing heavy white make up.

The painting appears to imply that the beautifully adorned women are as mute and subject to the voyeuristic gaze as the exotic dumb animal. Both are to be viewed purely on appearance with no knowledge of their true natures.

In my drawing the eye sockets of the faces and masks have been removed making it appear if all the figures are masked. The drawing will be attached to the mirror in the gallery. They look at us and we are mirrored looking at them. Staying with the original size of the painting makes this a discrete yet hopefully strong intervention.