Perspectives

“What would this painting by Titian have looked like four hundred years ago?” I always find myself asking myself new questions – and noticing details I have never appreciated before – when I visit galleries. Some of this comes with my studies. I saw a portrait in the entrance of the National Gallery of Scotland today that I started to study using some of the symbols I learned to look out for earlier this year in school. Other times, questions come because I start to wonder.

“If I were standing in the scene of this painting, what would I see around me?” This question came to mind as I looked at Tintoretto’s painting of Christ Carried to the Tomb. At the top of the painting there is a foot of an angel visible, with no body. This is because the whole painting was not taken out when removed from its frame. ¹ I had to imagine what might be at the top of the painting – the details I couldn’t see. Then I thought “What would be around and behind me?”

The more time I spent in the gallery, the more questions that came to mind. What if I were a person in a painting: sitting for a portrait, or an allegory sitting on the ground, or one of the people in a vast landscape?

I went to a room I don’t often visit. It is off to the side but the artworks inside are magnificent. I admired the light and shadow and grandeur and humanity in Bril’s “Fantastic Landscape”. Looking back, there is something delightful about that title. Indeed, the landscape was special: the way the light shone on the ground, and the blue of the hills, left an impression.

I thought about my next steps. What art should I go to see next? I decided to go to the landscapes room. I love all of the paintings in the landscapes room, but there are two that stick in my mind. I didn’t know the names of the works or the artists, so I went back to once again experience the sense of wonder from standing in front of them.

Making my way into the room, another painting caught my eye, one of a singular, tall tree behind which there is a denser forest grove. I admire the painting and hear behind me “Look at how intricate and all perfectly even that is.” I was not looking in their direction, but I think they were admiring one of the Canaletto paintings – the geometric approach he takes to painting is impressive. When they left, I turned around to verify the Canaletto paintings were there, and then I went on to what I came to see.

“Bertin’s Classical Landscape” ², “Fabre’s View from Florence” ³. I jotted down the names of the paintings, and then I feel in love with them again. Looking at Bertin’s Classical Landscape, I noticed the parallels between two broken branches — one prominent, in the foreground; the other, more subtle, yet illuminated by the sun that is peeking through the canopy of trees. Despite the grandeur of the landscape the bright blue and faint red flowers being collected (woven?) by two women in the foreground always catch my attention.

While I admire “Fabre’s View from Florence”, two women speak of their travels in Italy – to Venice and Rome and Florence and Siena. I think about how paintings bring out the stories we have; places we have been, places we desire to go. And then Crome’s “The Beaters” ⁴ catches my eye, showing tall trees along a country path that was made from sketches of Norfolk. There is so much to see.

What would it be like to be one of the women holding flowers in Bertin’s Classical Landscape? Or if I were in Crome’s The Beaters, standing in front of the pathway through what the information plaque called “ancient oaks”. How would I feel?

On my way out, I realised that there is so much to see that I often end up forgetting about the bottom floor, and, in particular, the Romantic-era paintings I love. Walking into a room and reading “Romance & Reality: Scotland”, I am in awe, at the rainbows and the landscapes and the bridges and the stories.

Did artists ever step back after finishing a piece of work and say “wow”?