Greatest UK Paintings Shortlist Announced
The BBC and National Gallery have announced the shortlist for the greatest paintings in the UK. It's no surprise to me that just two works from my list appeared on theirs, however it was surprising that their choice of Turner was The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up. Serena Davies, author of the article, attempts to explain what the chosen works are about and why they're great, providing the following explanation for The Fighting Temeraire: "Of Turner’s many apocalyptic seascapes, few are more dramatic than this moving salute to passing greatness." I can think of one in particular that is at the Tate, Snow Storm (which was on my list) and is clearly a more dramatic and emotional work of art than The Fighting Temeraire.
One notable omission from my list that appeared on the shortlist was Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergere, which was left off due to my general lack of familiarity with UK collections but it really deserves to be on the list. The article's author believes the list's predictability is it's strength, which in theory, makes some sense but I think on the whole this list is weak and disappointing. For Sir Henry Raeburn's Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston's Loch to make the list but not da Vinci's Virgin on the Rocks seems to me to be one of the largest practical jokes ever made rather than a real attempt to ascertain UK's greatest paintings.
The other works on the list and not already mentioned are:
1. The Haywain, John Constable (NGA- London)
2. Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy, David Hockney (Tate Britain- London)
3. Sunflowers, Vincent van Gogh (NGA- London)
4. The Last of England, Ford Madox Brown (Birmingham Museums and Art gallery & Fitwilliam Museum- Cambridge)
5. A Rake's Progress III: The Orgy, William Hogarth (Sir John Soan's Museum- London)
6. The Arnolfini Portrait, Jan van Eyck (NGA- London)
7. The Baptism of Christ, Piero della Francesca (NGA- London)
The National Gallery of Art in London has the most works on the list with 5, which supports my initial suspicion that this is just a marketing ploy by Britian's department of tourism. Yes, I understand that these works were chosen by the public and that they could arguably be considered "great" paintings but the idea of having a "competition" that clearly points out that UK's best are at the NGA seems curious indeed. On my unofficial and unranked list of 10 paintings, 6 were from the NGA and the two works that were on my list that also made the shortlist were both from the NGA, meaning I identified four other works in the NGA's collection that I thought could be great. In that same post, I also identified 6 other works that could also potentially be considered great works of art, three of which were from the NGA. Needless to say, it seems quite likely that others who made their own lists also had works on theirs from the NGA that did not make the shortlist, confirming my initial assessment that such a poll has no real purpose except to highlight the quality of the NGA's collection. In short, the poll is self-serving and ultimately meaningless.
One notable omission from my list that appeared on the shortlist was Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergere, which was left off due to my general lack of familiarity with UK collections but it really deserves to be on the list. The article's author believes the list's predictability is it's strength, which in theory, makes some sense but I think on the whole this list is weak and disappointing. For Sir Henry Raeburn's Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston's Loch to make the list but not da Vinci's Virgin on the Rocks seems to me to be one of the largest practical jokes ever made rather than a real attempt to ascertain UK's greatest paintings.
The other works on the list and not already mentioned are:
1. The Haywain, John Constable (NGA- London)
2. Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy, David Hockney (Tate Britain- London)
3. Sunflowers, Vincent van Gogh (NGA- London)
4. The Last of England, Ford Madox Brown (Birmingham Museums and Art gallery & Fitwilliam Museum- Cambridge)
5. A Rake's Progress III: The Orgy, William Hogarth (Sir John Soan's Museum- London)
6. The Arnolfini Portrait, Jan van Eyck (NGA- London)
7. The Baptism of Christ, Piero della Francesca (NGA- London)
The National Gallery of Art in London has the most works on the list with 5, which supports my initial suspicion that this is just a marketing ploy by Britian's department of tourism. Yes, I understand that these works were chosen by the public and that they could arguably be considered "great" paintings but the idea of having a "competition" that clearly points out that UK's best are at the NGA seems curious indeed. On my unofficial and unranked list of 10 paintings, 6 were from the NGA and the two works that were on my list that also made the shortlist were both from the NGA, meaning I identified four other works in the NGA's collection that I thought could be great. In that same post, I also identified 6 other works that could also potentially be considered great works of art, three of which were from the NGA. Needless to say, it seems quite likely that others who made their own lists also had works on theirs from the NGA that did not make the shortlist, confirming my initial assessment that such a poll has no real purpose except to highlight the quality of the NGA's collection. In short, the poll is self-serving and ultimately meaningless.
posted by Corey Wyckoff at 2:27 PM
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