Still, we visited the area again briefly at the beginning of the week and went for a drive out through the New Forest (why "New"?) and stopped off for a bite of lunch at The Filly Inn at Brockenhurst. Mrs Dave went for the offer - starter and main for a tenner but second born and I opted for the most expensive thing, Venison. All served in a "modern" manner. The evening before we'd been to the White Star and although excellent, it was all very, well, nouvelle. This tends to mean small helpings accompanied by a few chips piled up like a game of Jenga with some jus sprinkled on top. It's all very nice - the venison was good and there was plenty of it - but it's becoming a bit old hat now, isn't it?
Anyway, if you caught the recent series on tv called Perspectives then you may have marvelled at how rich (and ugly) Andrew Lloyd Webber is, or even been blown away by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood paintings he owns. He's not the sort of person I'd want to spend much time with (after all, I'm an oik) but if he wants to invite me round for a cup of Earl Grey and to check out his PRB stuff, I'd be quite happy to. I know the old PRB are often scoffed at but their subject matter and pure craft keep me interested. Especially Edward Burne-Jones.
EBJ certainly knew how to paint beautiful women - Andromeda in the illustration is one of my two all-time favourite nudes. What's all this got to do with the price of fish you ask? Well, Southampton Art Gallery has a fantastic room with the whole of the Perseus series by EBJ. And finally after a fair few trips there to see second born at Uni, I managed to get there to see it. Experience it. There are a few artists that I admire who I really wish I could draw/paint like. Jones is definitely one of them. Barry Windsor Smith is another - although mostly known as a comic book artist, he has been heavily influenced by the PRB.
The Perseus series was a commission and he never actually produced a finished version of the ten paintings. If you look at the Atlas one there's a dreadful image of Perseus flying - it looks as though he came in drunk one night and thought, "I'll just paint Perseus in before I go to bed". The image of Atlas had obviously had hours spent on it.
It was a pleasure to go in to the little room in the Gallery and spend some genuine quality time looking at these fantastic "cartoons" (as they're referred to*). Then we went and wandered about looking at the Andy Warhol exhibition. No competition. Least said, soonest mended.
* Reminds me of Pete and Dud looking at the Da Vinci cartoon of the Madonna and Child: " 'ere Pete, it's not very funny, is it?"
