Latest news with #Vernet
Telegraph
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Ban selfie-takers from museums – these people don't deserve to see great art
A few years ago, I found myself standing before Vernet's Portrait of a Lady in Los Angeles' County Museum of Art, taking a series of ' anger-management breaths '. What had made me cross enough to engage in a stress reduction technique I remain unconvinced by? Not the pursed-mouthed woman on the canvas, but the girl who had placed herself between me and the famous 19th-century portrait, phone aloft, face contorted into a series of cretinous expressions. She was taking selfies. Because that's what people do now when they see anything or anybody famous. Because what's the point of those things without 'le grand moi', the all-important you? There's a social media expression: 'pics or it didn't happen'. Really, it's 'pics or it doesn't count'. That painting was of zero value without her gurning little face in the frame. And when she met her friends later, the girl could pull out her phone and say: 'There's me – and Vernet's Portrait of a Lady.' Only one thing will take me from zero to 60 faster than a museum selfie-taker, and that's a museum selfie-taker who thinks it's beyond hilarious to assume the same pose as the subject of the painting. A goon like the Uffizi visitor who was trying so hard to perfect the same pose as Anton Domenico Gabbiani's Ferdinando de' Medici on Saturday, that he lost his balance and leant back against the canvas, tearing a hole in the bottom corner. Yesterday, the director of the Uffizi declared an official crackdown on selfie-takers. 'The problem of visitors coming to museums to make memes or take selfies for social media is rampant,' said Simone Verde. 'We will set very precise limits, preventing behaviour that is not compatible with the sense of our institutions and respect for cultural heritage. The tourist, who was immediately identified, will be prosecuted.' Good. Ban him, while you're at it. Do we have to wait until people fall through our most celebrated canvases and topple our ancient statues to do the same? British museums have been forced to embrace selfie culture because they fear that a crackdown would deter visitors. Some have even reconfigured themselves to be 'selfie-friendly' and advertised 'national selfie day' in an attempt to ingratiate themselves with the young. It's true that there are instances where that kind of 'engagement' does work. A lot of contemporary art is created with a kind of audience participation in mind, for example. But with anything older, museums are running the risk of alienating their core clientele. Ban selfies and you encourage people to take in their cultural heritage – perhaps even develop a little respect for it. Let those who are only interested in worshipping at their own altars stay at home, twisting, turning and gurning in front of their mirrors.
The Guardian
31-01-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Seaside surrealism, a techno Man Ray and new paintings from Billy Childish
Ithell Colquhoun: Between Worlds Seaside surrealism gets a show by the picturesque shores of St Ives, in an intriguing survey of this British occultist and modern artist. Tate St Ives, Cornwall, 1 February to 5 May Noah Davis Skilful and dreamlike paintings of everyday Black life with glimpses of mythology. Barbican Art Gallery, London, 6 February to 11 May Tarot: Origins and Afterlives This Renaissance research centre is the ideal venue for a show on the mysteries of tarot cards, invented in 15th-century Italy. Warburg Institute, London, until 30 April Thomas Ruff: Expériences Lumineuses The German artist digitally manipulates abstract photography, in a techno answer to Man Ray. David Zwirner, London, until 22 March Billy Childish: 'like a god i love all things' New paintings of Kent, California and his family by the veteran punk and former Stuckist. Lehmann Maupin at 9 Cork Street, London, until 15 February The world's most famous portrait, the Mona Lisa, is to get a room of its own in the Louvre, as the director of the world's most visited museum warned that visiting the overcrowded building had become a 'physical ordeal'. Read the full story here and why the decision is a misguided act of snobbery. Peter Hujar's intense photographs of 70s and 80s New York will sweep you away Flávio de Carvalho donned a skirt and sparked a Brazilian art revolution A rediscovered 'mystery' Munch painting will go on display in the UK for first time Artist Theaster Gates has an alternative vision for making America great again Banksy now has a dedicated museum in Madrid Carl Bloch's lost masterpiece found fame again in Athens Eric Tucker's nephew has written a moving account of the painter' secret vocationStories are woven in cloth in Pakistan's first textile museum The dramatic work of Paule Vézelay is being honoured in her home city of Bristol A Shipwreck in Stormy Seas by Claude-Joseph Vernet, 1773 Romanticism is often seen as an early 19th-century cultural movement but, as this painting shows, it started decades earlier. Vernet depicts survivors scrambling ashore from a wooden ship that has foundered in spewing, boiling waves, but this is not a real-life scene to fill you with pity. It is instead a psychological drama that summons up sensation and horror – the feelings that 18th-century aestheticians called 'sublime'. Vernet has composed his spectacle for maximum sublimity: not only are there violent seas, one or even two doomed ships, and terrified people – but the shore is big and rocky, there's a castle-like lighthouse, and the sky is partly ablaze with eerie orange light. The same cocktail of terrors would stir the wild seas of JMW Turner, who was born two years after this was painted. National Gallery, London If you don't already receive our regular roundup of art and design news via email, please sign up here. If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@
