A Chat With Gordon Giltrap and Review of The Last of England

I love when marvellous, unexpected things come in to my life and that is just what happened to me when I was last in Birmingham for the Pre-Raphaelite Society AGM.  I nipped into the Birmingham Art Gallery shop and picked up what I thought at first was a calendar, but turned out to be something much more magical. I bought it immediately...

Available to buy on both CD and vinyl (obviously I bought vinyl, and it's orange vinyl to boot!), this album is inspired by Pre-Raphaelite art works, from the title track, though April Love, Work and The Light of the World.  I was familiar with Gordon's work beforehand, but for those who have not yet had the pleasure, his work is beautiful instrumental pieces, with his guitar telling sound-stories which perfectly match the paintings and the mood of the album.  From the rolling tide of 'The Last of England', and the lazy wamth of 'All the Days in May', through the unexpected strength and industry of 'Work'.

Gordon Giltrap

I love Gordon's music as it is so distinctive and beautiful, and this is a brilliant album, bringing a further dimension to the paintings, an interpretation though emotion rather than words.  I think the title track is my favourite but 'Work' really caught my imagination too with the sound of the workmen, striking stone and metal. The album has the romanticism and wistfulness you would expect from music inspired by Pre-Raphaelite art but there is more than that here.  I definitely recommend this as your Pre-Raphaelite soundtrack for the winter, especially if you need the comfort of beauty and gentleness in the rather rough present.  Add to your Christmas list now or better yet, buy a copy for yourself.

I was doubly fortunate enough to get in touch with Gordon and he answered some questions for me...

Q. When did you first discover the Pre-Raphaelites?

It was all down to my wife Hilary who had been an admirer of their work for many years, and showed me shortly after we had met a beautiful book from a Pre Raphaelite exhibitions she had attended. I instantly fell in love with those beautiful other worldly images, and when I saw the Holman Hunt "Light if the World" I recognised it from my childhood. That very image hung in my grandmother’s cottage, so in fact I grew up with that haunting image, never truly knowing anything about it.  It was like a home-coming for me when I saw these paintings and felt drawn to compose  pieces inspired by them, very much in the same way as Visionary way back in 1975. 

Q. I interviewed Robin Lawrie about his book illustrations for Tennyson in the 1960s and he said he saw a 'movement' of 1960s/70s Pre-Raphaelite musicians.  Would you identify with this?  

In many ways yes, in relation to the Blake inspired Visionary album mentioned earlier where powerful images (I keep using that word) completely captivated me and in some way obsessed me and drove me passionately to compose a suite of tunes, but in Blake's case it was a mixture of poetry and paintings, once again with an other-worldly spiritual feel to them, but of course that was exactly what the great man was all about.

Q. Did you always want to write music around Pre-Raphaelite art?  Could it be seen as a (somewhat delayed) sequel to 'Visionary' (after the art of William Blake)?

No, because I'm a relative later comer to the movement. I think in many ways with the new album it feels like a full circle from the mid-seventies to the present day, so maybe it could be described as a somewhat late sequel. In 1981 I released an album inspired by the illustrations of Alan Aldridge with The Peacock Party album, but I feel it pales somewhat in the light of this latest album, but then it would do, wouldn't it? And how marvellous to have one of the greatest images in English art as my album cover. It doesn't get any better than that, does it? I'm delighted it has had a vinyl release to truly show off the painting. I think a number of folk have bought it even without having a turntable on which to play it, and  just having it as a piece of art is enough for them, and indeed why not?

Q. How did you choose the paintings you wrote pieces for?  Were there paintings you would have liked to include? (I'm obviously angling for another album as I loved this one so much)

I simply chose paintings I could relate to like The Light of the World and Work with it's obviously busy, forward motion of honest labour and the street scene. The title track is so evocative and a gift for any composer to be inspired by, with the promise of a sea voyage and the underlying trepidation on the faces of the young couple. I don't think there are any other images that grabbed me as much as the ones I chose. Chatterton of course is such a tragic story and a challenge to try and capture musically that silent scene of death.

The Death of Chatterton (1856) Henry Wallis

Q. Why orange vinyl?  And also thank you for orange vinyl, I got stupidly over-excited by it because I am old enough that coloured vinyl is massively exciting...

Pete Bonner from the record company chose the colour which matched a colour in the Millais painting.

Q. If you had to pick one, what is your favourite Pre-Raphaelite painting?

I love so many of them, but I guess it has to The Last of England. My second choice would be The Light of the World.

The Last of England (1855) Ford Madox Brown

On a personal note, it is a small miracle that this album exists, because before getting ill in 2015,I had decided not to make any more albums, because I felt I had sort of said all I needed to say musically, but it was whilst recovering from my first lot of surgery that a thought occurred to me that I had already had an early incarnation of some of these pieces that formed part of an album I did with Rick Wakeman released about seven years ago. I felt then that the pieces deserved far more work than was put into them at the time.

 I approached my dear friend and collaborator Paul Ward about coming on board and helping me to realise this dream of an album that stretches back to 1987 when I first started work on the suite, and now all these years on it exists. I'm truly humbled by the response the music has received, which I guess at its heart has a resonance of truth about it and for that I'm very grateful.

I thank you so much Kirsty for asking me to do this interview,it has been a privilege.

As a final note I want to thank my lovely wife Hilary for her constant support and inspiration without whom much of this music of mine would not exist, and it was due to her diligence and determination that The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery has it gracing their gift shop!

Spring (1859) John Everett Millais

Many, many thanks to Gordon and Hilary for their time and patience, and for making such a gorgeous album that I can't recommend enough.  Pop into BMAG if you are close enough but if not, it is available on Amazon.

Book Review: Pre-Raphaelites, Beauty and Rebellion

You probably know that Liverpool have a massive Pre-Raphaelite exhibition on at present. Pre-Raphaelites: Beauty and Rebellion is currently running at the Walker Art Gallery (yes, I intend to claim that gallery at some point) until 5th June and the Walker family will be pottering up north to see it in April.  In advance of this, the kind people at Liverpool University Press sent me a copy of the catalogue to review.  Well, thank you very much...

This is a small, affordable catalogue, filled with good quality illustrations and a lot of interesting research on Liverpool's place in the Pre-Raphaelite story.  I'm liking the trend for mini-catalogues: don't get me wrong, I adore a massive £30 monolith filled with gorgeousness, but sometimes, if you already have a ton of books on the subject, a smaller catalogue is just as satisfying and won't break the bank or your back getting it home.  At £15, this is really good and contains many images I was not familiar with. What more can you ask for?

The Scapegoat (1854-5) William Holman Hunt

The angle the exhibition takes is a rather contemporary one: Dissatisfied with how London-centric everything was, Liverpool decided to take matters into its own hands, culturally speaking.  In the Georgian period, men were making money in new industries and began to pour it back into the local community, with institutions , schools and libraries, as well as building personal cultural collections.



Man of Sorrows (c.1859) William Dyce

The formation of the Liverpool Academy in 1810 began a run of exhibitions, lasting until the 1860s, which featured such superstars of the day such as Lawrence, Etty and Turner.  The Academy offered to pay transport costs to get the art from London (and ship it back if it didn't sell) and held its annual exhibition in September making it fall comfortably apart from the Royal Academy's May exhibition.  If your work didn't sell in May, then it became a staple to try again in the autumn.  By the 1820s, Liverpool Academy's exhibition gained national importance, reported in the newspapers and drawing the best art and artists. 

Oure Ladye of Saturday Night (1847) Ford Madox Brown

By 1851, the census recorded that Liverpool had the greatest number of artists living in a city beside London. It is unsurprising that it would draw the interest of the Pre-Raphaelites.  A number of Ford Madox Brown's pictures were seen for the first time in Liverpool including Oure Ladye of Saturday Night (also known as Our Lady of Good Children) which had been rejected by the Royal Academy in 1847.  The Art Journal of 1853 reported 'the Liverpool Academy has a decided penchant for Pre-Raffaelitism'.

Autumn Leaves (1856) John Everett Millais

The catalogue itself is split into two sections.  The first covers the paintings that graced the walls of the Liverpool Academy exhibitions, including ones such as Autumn Leaves (1856) by Millais which aren't actually in Beauty and Rebellion.  There are pictures by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and their followers such as Arthur Hughes, John Brett and George Price Boyce, as well as lesser known artists such as Frederick Smallfield.

Wedding Cards: Jilted (1854) John Everett Millais

The second part of the book concentrates on the Liverpool patrons, those men who made their money and invested in paintings, such as John Miller, Frederick Leyland and William Hesketh Lever, whose works became the Lady Lever Art Gallery.  It is obvious that William Holman Hunt did very well up north as many of his works are included, but there are also pictures by Rossetti, Burne-Jones and Millais' gorgeous Wedding Cards: Jilted.

Venus Verticordia (1863-8) Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Because I am married to Mr Walker, the curator of the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery, another collections made by a Victorian art lover, I already have an interest in the people who patronised the artists I love so much.  In fact Venus Verticordia from the Russell-Cotes is on display in Liverpool because it belonged to Mr Mitchell of Bradford but watercolour copies were requested by Liverpool patrons George Rae and William Hesketh Lever. It is another way of looking at art and artists because it has to be acknowledged that at times artistic inspiration came out of necessity.



The Gardener's Daughter (1868-9) John Ingle Lee

The catalogue is a smashing taster of the exhibition, making me eager to see it, but also if I was unable to travel to Liverpool, it covers the themes and subject well in an informative and enjoyable way.  The paintings are beautifully reproduced, some with their frames, but if I had to have a criticism (and it is a petty one) spreading an image over more than one page really doesn't work successfully without cracking the spine to see it all.

Jesus Washing Peter's Feet (1852-6) Ford Madox Brown

To buy this lovely book, go to the Walker Art Gallery shop here where you will also find further information on the exhibition. It is no doubt available through Amazon or your local bookshop too.  A lovely addition to anyone's Pre-Raphaelite library and an interesting path of research.

Model Children

If you have the dubious pleasure of knowing me personally, you'll know I take an unfeasible amount of photographs of my daughter, Lily-Rose...

Lily-Rose, May 2015

I always loved taking photographs and she's a fairly handy model (who can be easily bribed with chocolate) and very beautiful, so the photographs keep coming. There are no doubt other things going on with my photographs, including my fascination with how beautiful her genetic condition, oculocutaneous albinism, is. I wondered about Victorian artists and the use of their children in art...

This is our Corner (1873) Lawrence Alma-Tadema

There is always a good reason to use your own children in your art.  Lawrence Alma-Tadema used his daughters, Laurense and Anna in this wonderful picture, appealing to the sentimental side of Victorian taste.  More than that though, he also captured his daughters in a moment of time, in a little reading nook.  Alma-Tadema had lost his first wife four years before and moved to England from Brussels, marrying again in 1871.  Possibly guilt over the rapid change in the children's situation caused him to paint them so lovingly, or maybe a sense of unity that the three of them had survived such a time of sorrow.  One girl is in shadow looking unsure but her sister has moved into the light.  Maybe Alma-Tadema felt that they were emerging from a shadow, looking forward to a brighter future in a new country with a new wife and mother.

William Holman Hunt and his son Cyril (1872) Charles Dodgson

Holman Hunt and little Cyril also went through the loss of Fanny Holman Hunt, just two months after she gave birth to Cyril, in Florence (Cyril's middle name was Benoni, meaning 'child of sorrow').  Six years later, this photograph shows father and son united, but with a new woman in their lives, Fanny's sister Edith who had been acting as Cyril's guardian.  The photograph was possibly a gift for Edith who began her romantic affair with Hunt in 1872, marrying him three years later.

Cyril Benoni Holman Hunt (1880) William Holman Hunt

The artist's obvious pride in his son shines through this handsome portrait of his teenage boy.  Cyril, transformed into a gentleman (14 years old) is shown enjoying suitable pastimes and dressed to the nines. There is a tenderness to this picture, the pose and attitude of the young man, which expresses the love between father and son, and in the growth and accomplishment of the child as perceived by his father.

My First Sermon (1863) John Everett Millais

My Last Sermon (1863)

A man who was not short of children at home was John Everett Millais.  After marrying Effie Ruskin, the couple didn't hesitate in repopulating London with their many little Millais children.  Effie, obviously named for her mother, was born in 1858 and was the third child (first daughter) of the couple. Millais' cherubic images of his daughter include the two above and another of her dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, all very cute and very commercial.  With Millais' art, there seems less personal element, and more of an eye to what would be popular. It could be as simple as commercial acumen but it could also be a celebration of his success in making the marriage work whether others couldn't - Ha! Take that Ruskin! Mind you, I know of a few people on Facebook like that...

Margaret Burne-Jones (centre, with Sara and Elizabeth Norton)

I empathise with Edward Burne-Jones' delight in the beauty of his daughter, Margaret, and his use of her in his art.  Margaret, deep set eyes and oval face, looks like the epitome of a Burne-Jones virgin and her father's art reflects and repeats that pale simplicity until all of his women look a little like Margaret.

The Golden Stairs

Margaret is fourth from the top with the long trumpet, surrounded by her friends, all looking very much alike...

Sketch for Sleeping Beauty in The Briar Rose Series

Most famously, Margaret was Sleeping Beauty in her father's massive Briar Rose panels.  Speaking as a mother (what an odd phrase) I wonder if part of Burne-Jones' artistic vision was a way of freezing his child in her growth away from him.  Burne-Jones was miserable when Margaret married and he had to let her go and so to show her as the princess, sleeping peacefully, preserved as a child, might have acted as wishful thinking. 

Collette's First Steps (1895) Henri Gervex

Collette Gervex (1910)

The artist Henri Gervex chose the moment of his daughter's first steps to paint her portrait.  Obviously the painting is a conceit, the painting did not happen spontaneously at the moment she walked, but is a piece of memory, created around the time that Collette began to walk, possibly inspired by the moment of her first steps but not begun and finished in that moment.  Unlike Burne-Jones' desire to keep his daughter passive (consciously or unconsciously), Gervex is celebrating his daughter's blossoming independence, her active motion which will eventually take her away from him.  Fifteen years later, the beautiful young woman who stands before us is reminiscent of Holman Hunt's teenage son. Gervex shows us the young woman, graceful and fashionable, who is ready to go out in the world on her own.

Julia Margaret Cameron and Henry Herschel Hay Cameron (1867)

Despite starting late in life, Julia Margaret Cameron managed to use her children in her art, not to mention her grandchildren.  Her love of children makes me sorry she did not have the camera earlier in their lives, but she certainly made up for it with images of her children, grandchildren and friends' children.

Lionel Tennyson by Julia Margaret Cameron



Madonna and Child (with Archibald Cameron)

Her first photograph success was the child of a friend and her pictures of children rival the images of flowing haired maidens as being the strongest in Cameron's repertoire. Her pictures of the children of her famous friend Alfred Tennyson show them relaxed or playing a part in a scene, in contrast to the more formal treatment they received from professional photographers.  Each picture seems like a relationship Cameron held and treasured, and by showing each sitter in a new light, Cameron explored the child's character, delighting in her own insights and sharing them with the world.

The Last of England (1855) Ford Madox Brown

Saving the most complicated for last, you can't talk about parent artists without talking about Ford Madox Brown.  His use of all his children in his art is both charming but also filled with pathos. Starting with his daughters Lucy and Catherine (or Catty, seen in the pink bonnet eating the apple in The Last of England), Madox Brown also included his two sons, Oliver and Arthur in his work.  Arthur is the baby in Work...

Work (1863)

Detail of above

Arthur Madox Brown is the little baby in the urchin girl's arms.  He grew ill as his father worked on the picture and died before the work was finished.  The baby wears a little black ribbon around his arm as a mark of the loss. Arthur is also the baby in Take Your Son Sir! and his death at 10 months is used as explanation for the picture's unfinished state.

Take Your Son, Sir! (1851)

Ford Madox Brown created a lasting memorial to a child who lived a mere 10 months and he is remembered today in one of the most puzzling pictures of that period.  It is possible that his death contributed to the enigma, as we have only the mother's face, the baby and the reflection of the father in the image which I have seen interpreted as a simple celebration of motherhood and also a damning  accusation of illicit liaisons and illegitimate children.

Oliver Madox Brown Ford Madox Brown

The use of children in the art of their parent can be as simple or complex as you choose to interpret it. At one end, they are the model close at hand, always available and able to sit for  as long as you like (or as long as they will stay still). In some cases, like that of poor little Arthur Madox Brown, it feels like foreshadowing, but it is just a reflection of infant mortality at that time. The images of Arthur seem filled with pathos because he died at the moment we see him in the painting, but then this image is just a fact of life. The image of him in Work with the little black ribbon is similar to Rossetti's tribute to his wife in Beata Beatrix, a tribute and memento mori both for the child and for us all. However, using your own children might also reflect your own fears of them growing up, growing away from you, your own mortality. Parental pride cannot be underestimated, and there is definitely an element of bragging in some of the pictures.  Look how gorgeous my child is!  Look how accomplished they have become!  That's my genetics at work.

Well, that's what happens in my work anyway...

Lily-Rose, 2011

Mind you, I'm just following in the footsteps of my own photographer father...

Me c.1976 by my Dad

Selfie

It has been mentioned to me on a few occasions that I am rather prone to change my profile picture regularly.  For reasons numerous and complicated I seem to have a compulsion to take and change my pictures, but part of it is that I am rather accomplished at the art of the self-portrait or the 'selfie'. It's all to do with angle and lighting (thank you Kim Kardashian) and by manipulating these I can give you an impression of what I am like.  In real life, I am a little awkward, talk either too loudly or too quiet, cannot express myself as well as I can in type, but in the silent, static image I can control what you think of me.  Well, sort of.

Me in 2008, at the beginning of my selfie habit

Me, a couple of weeks ago

A self portrait is the ultimate act of persona control - it enables the viewed to set the message for the viewer.  For an artist it has an added dimension - it also says 'look how good I am at my art'.  In a heady mix of personal image and display of talent, the self portrait tells us a lot about the artist and their world...

John Everett Millais (1847)

J E Millais in 1883

Before and after Pre-Raphaelitism, we have the most successful of the Brotherhood, with two of his self portraits.  Eager, young and vivid, young Millais holds his palette and looks to us in readiness.  Older Millais stands still for us to admire him.  There is a connection in the way Young Millais looks at us, directly at his audience, his customers.  He needs to connect with us, not just artistically.  You could cynically say he wants to be recognised, needs to see our response, needs us to feel a connection so that we will buy his work.  Older Millais slips into shadow, is a man being looked at and does not need to be assured of our interest.  He already knows it.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Good Lord!)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1861)

The two self portraits by Rossetti are often the subject of very academic discussion about whether or not he was ever 'really that hot' (technical term) or whether the later portrait was more honest. In his youthful portrait, he looks romantic, Byron-esque, appropriate.  In his later picture, he looks serious, adult, possibly befitting his new role as husband and serious artist/poet.

Rossetti's self portraits give the impression of a more private audience than Millais was expecting.  Possibly the sketch-quality of Rossetti's portraits gave the impression that he intended the pictures for an intimate circle, as mementos of him.  Millais', especially the latter image, are public pictures, an official image of the artist.

Ford Madox Brown (1877)

The semiotics of self-presentation are complex.  It can go beyond 'here is my palette, here's how I paint' to incorporating a background hinting at style, influence, taste.

Frederic Leighton (1880)

Sometimes people are so famous they do not need clues.  Possibly the most famous artist of his era appears in Doctor of Civil Law robes, his Royal Academy presidential medal just seen.  The classical frieze behind him hints at his artistic nature, his style and leanings.  In the 1888 portrait by G F Watts, Leighton appears in similar dress but a palette and brushes are beside him.  Possibly as the above painting was a self-portrait, Leighton felt it would be superfluous to include the tools of his trade.

Ralph Headley (1895)

The act of painting, the method and skill is most amply expressed in Headley's self-portrait of 1895.  The vase which holds his brushes, together with his hat and gloves shows his taste.  The mirror is a pseudo-honest way of showing how the portrait was achieved but also is a clever trick.  You the viewer are stood where the artist should be.  We are both admiring his work while holding his place.  It is sly humour and we share the joke.

Lovis Corinth (1914)

Like Leighton, Corinth does not need to tell you he is a painter.  At first I wondered if this was a comment on war due to the date but there are earlier images of him in armour.  It is a comment on Corinth as the man, the knight, the protector.  He is a man in archaeic dress but his painting style is erring on the modern.  He is a contradiction, a statement.  This, however, is not the most provocative self portrait that Corinth painted...

Self Portrait with his wife and a glass of champagne (1902)

Potentially uncomfortable at dinner parties, the Corinths leave little to the imagination about their lifestyle.  The champagne glass echoes the breast clasped in his other hand, his model and his drink both acting as pleasures in the artists life.  Behind is not an easel, but a table of food and drink.  The Corinths are about the good life and their intimacy involves the viewer in a rather startling manner.

Elizabeth Siddal (1853-4)

Speaking as a woman (hello, where are we going with this?) image today is a precarious balance of attractiveness and competence, both seemingly and worryingly distinct from each other.  Maybe it was ever thus and maybe so for men too, but you wonder if there was that choice to be made for women artists.  Should you show your best side, or should you be more than honest, possibly brutal?  Comparing Siddal's portraits by her lover, which are kinder, softer to her own image of herself, it is possible to see it is the same woman but she has exaggerated her palour, her hooded eyes, the starkness of her expression. It is how she sees herself, a self assessment without compromise or flattery. Is it about her as worker rather than her as muse?

Sarah Harrison (1900)

Given that this is a period where women artists were still considered 'hobbyists' it is perhaps unsurprising that they would add more gravity to their image, reflecting the struggle to be taken seriously; a woman who appears with the tools of her trade, ready, able and serious in her task.  There is no frivolity, no pandering to vanity in Harrison's self portrait above.  It's not that she isn't a good looking woman, it's just if you compare for example Leighton's magnificence with Harrison's subtle richness, the emphasis is on the sharpness rather than the attractiveness of the subject.

Zinaida Serebrjakova (1909)

Entitled Self Portrait at the Dressing Table, Serebrjakova demonstrates that it was possible for a female artist to exploit a muse cliche and show herself combing her hair in underwear.  Reminiscent of Rossetti's women in the 1860s, the artist appears with the accoutrements of feminine charm, but she is a mirror image, signified by the candle on the left hand side.  The artist has painted herself as an impossible reflection.  Unlike Headley who seems to be caught in the act of painting himself, Serebrjakova is preening, possibly as a comment on what society expects her to be doing in a mirror rather than what she actually was doing. Whether this contradiction was caught by her audience is another matter.  It might just be that Serebrjakova knew a picture of her in her underwear would sell possibly better than one of her looking studious.

Alvin Coburn (1905)

With the advent of photographic self portraits, the notion that the camera was the medium of unartistic truth was shed almost as soon as it was assumed.  By the turn of the twentieth century, artists such as Coburn, above, could present themselves as avante garde young men, just as much as an artist like Maxwell Armfield...

Maxwell Armfield (1901)

Armfield's portrait has gone beyond just one man's self portrait to encompass all young men of his artistic leanings.  More than any other selfie I have seen, Armfield is not only himself in his tempera vision, he is all men of that aesthetic, sensitive beauty with pink bows, flowers in wine glasses and the beauty of decorative art surrounding them.  He is a man, he is an art movement and he is only 20 years old.

The nuanced difference between portraiture and self portraiture may be slight at times.  If someone has a say in what image is taken of them, is shown of them, then in a way the only difference becomes the display of talent.  A self portrait is control of image, a parcelling up of what people will get from you.  Are you serious?  Are you precise?  Are you a big letch and a drinker?  All can be shown.  The colour, the shadow, the background, dress, undress - all tell you something of the person you are buying into either ideologically or literally.  With Armfield you are buying an aesthetic young man with dandyish tendencies, with Leighton you are buying the establishment.  So what do I want you to buy into with my image?

I'm not sure, but it will probably be different next week....