Arts Award Review: Tom Flury

For my part B (be the audience) I went to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square and looked at the paintings. My mum and I got the train into London and then got a bus from Liverpool Street Station to Trafalgar Square. We then stopped to look at the performers in the Square, who included buskers and those people who ‘float’, then we went into the National Gallery. We went into the shop near the entrance and chose a postcard of the picture I most wanted to see. We then went through the gallery’s in chronological order, starting from the oldest paintings and working our way through time to the newest paintings. We could see how the style of painting changed through time, from quite unrealistic older pictures, to the very true to life in the Renaissance period, through to the Impressionists in the newer galleries, where my chosen picture was located. We looked at all the paintings but particularly we were looking for the one on the postcard which was 'La Ferte‎‎‎'. It was painted in 1825 by Richard Parkes Bonnington. It is oil on a fibre board and depicts a beach scene with a boat pulled up onto the beach and another in the water. There is a person on the right sitting looking out to sea. A stormcloud is coming in from the left of the sky, contrasting with the sunny, idyllic scene on the beach.

Another painting I liked was a Coastal Scene by a Belgian called Theo van Rysselberghe. It depicts a coastal scene with land in the background at the right. Several wooden posts are seen sticking out of the water in the foreground. It uses a different and unusual style of painting using dots of paint.

I enjoyed the National Gallery and found it very enlightening as it helped me to understand how styles of painting have changed throughout the years. I would recommend it to anyone of any age who is into art though perhaps not modern art.