Wandering in England, Day 1 cont.

Given that we spent so many hours in the Tate Modern, the following is a very small showing of art but we could not take photos and they take a long time to download on our rural line. Besides that, you may not be interested anyway. So, with that said, below is work from one of my favourite sculptors, David Smith:



The above work is called Wagon II and was made in 1964. It is 2.73 m (9 ft.) x 2.83 (9.3 ft.) x 112 m (3.6 ft.).



The work above is another piece by David Smith. It is called Home of the Welder and is a desk top size. I forgot to write down the size. Someday I hope to work in metal but right now my lack of welding skill slows me down. I am reduced to drilling holes and bolting things together.



This piece by Cy Twombly (Quattro Stagioni: Primavera) was in the same gallery as the works by David Smith and was one of Églantine's favourites. She liked the colour, the fact that all the canvas was not painted and the use of words on the painting. It, and the following work, was over 3 m (10 ft.) tall.



This second piece by Cy Twombly (Quattro Stagioni: Autunno) was the one part of the four piece work that I liked the best. Both the colours and the drip technique made the work interesting for me.



Both Églantine and I enjoyed Karel Appel's Mensen, vogels en zonnen (People, Birds and Sun). Again the bright colours captured us as well as the technique used of initally painting without thought and then looking to see what was there and emphasizing that.



Kandinsky has been a favourite artist of mine for quite some time. It is always a treat for me to see what he can do with geometric shapes and colour! Sorry, I forgot to write down his title for this work.



This sculpture was huge. The tallest part was originally the height of the Berlin Wall and was part of an installation not far from the wall in 1982. Knowing, in a very rough way, the cost of casting items in bronze, I was most impressed with the scope of this work. I found the smaller bits, lying about the floor of the gallery less inspiring but still worthy of some thought. I spent a good half hour sketching this work to help me appreciate it. The work is called Lightning with Stag in its Glare and was made by Joseph Beuys.



This last work was also the last of a tour that Églantine and I took. The sculptor started with a long beam of wood and used a chainsaw and the hammer and chisel to tease out the original tree from within the beam. I have seen, in rotting trees, the early bits and pieces of limbs that were harder than the outside wood, but finding them in a beam and carving down to them was an amazing piece of detective work in my estimation. The work was so tall that it had to be cut in half to fit into the large gallery. It is called Albero di 12 metri (Tree of 12 metres) [39.4 ft] and was made by Giuseppe Penone.