Tea and Goddesses (Art)

[tamaranth]

Yesterday I met up with ladymoonray for tea and cakes at the National Portrait Gallery. Ever since seeing Closer we've been thinking about visiting the Portrait Restaurant, which has stupendous views over London -- assuming it is not drizzly-dreary February, of course.

Not cheap but very good. We had a plate of British cheeses with splendidly more-ish chutney (comes with port, mmmm) and a selection of warm cakes (insufficient chocolate, but the exact smell of a post-bake kitchen: at home my mother used to have to open the door to dissipate the steam.) Recommended.

Then we went downstairs.

Long, long ago, there was an article in one of the colour supplements about an exhibition of photographs from the 1930s. Each portrait showed a society lady as a goddess or heroine from classical myth. I cut out all the pictures and added them to various collages -- Europa, with bull's head, graced my English coursework folder, which should date the event -- but somehow misremembered the photographer. For years I have been looking through galleries of Man Ray's work, having conflated a mention of Ray's technique and a memory of Niobe glistening with glycerine tears.

A selection of Madame Yevonde's photographs from the series 'Goddesses and Others' (1935) is at the National Portrait Gallery. I'd found a flyer for it at the Horniman museum and couldn't resist.

The Goddessphotographs are beautiful in and of themselves. It's easy to think of the Thirties as a sepia period (and indeed this was apparently the first British exhibition of colour portrait photography) but the colours are as bright and vivid and exaggerated as a 1950s advertisement. I don't really understand the whole photographic process very clearly (er, you send off the film and photos come back: or, lately, you plug in the little card and they appear on screen ...) but the NPG's notes are very clear. Yevonde, daughter of a Streatham tradesman, used a particular process, VIVEX, which involved three separate negatives, and equipment / materials manufactured by a single company. The factory closed down during the Second World War, and never reopened: no more VIVEX.

And the subjects are splendid. Some of the photos work better than others -- and quite a few of the most famous weren't on display. I am particularly fond of Arethusa (on the NPG page for the exhibition, and also Europa: was hoping to see Medusa, too. Sometimes (Ariadne) the photograph works because of the contrast between the primitive nature of the image (woman with sword) and the well-bred expression of the sitter. Sometimes (Minerva) it's a reinterpretation of ancient myth in a chillingly civilised way.

There was another photograph at the NPG which I hadn't seen before, but which has an immensely vibrant feel: Portrait of the racing driver Jill Thomas, 1938. I don't think the web version does it justice: it has personality.

I'm fascinated by what I've read of Madame Yevonde: Suffragette, feminist, artist, innovator. Her motto, "Be original or die". I want to buy prints, lots of 'em, and decorate: I want to look at things through that full-colour filter. But failing that, I might make myself some LiveJournal icons.

After which we went to see Vanity Fair: of which more later.

Comments

[ajshepherd.livejournal.com]

Wow! Those are excellent. The colours are so vibrant, they just leap out at you. I think I'll have to go and take a look at that to see them properly.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I'm curious about Vanity Fair, for no more reason than it screwed up the traffic for a week while they had Great Pultney Street Passing for London.

The reviews I've seen have been not great.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

You've very little chance of catching it: it's just closed at the Odeon Wardour Street, and never even made it to our local UGC. I thought it was lovely, though occasionally a bit rushed: splendid acting too.

[zoo-music-girl.livejournal.com]

Oh, I want to go to that exhibition! I love the Medusa one!

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

That's another film I've missed, then. It never made it to either of the multiplexes in Wood Green.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

Medusa, sadly, not on display: but those that are, are distinctly worth seeing! It's in the Bookshop Gallery, downstairs, and there are prints and cards on sale.