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12 July 2011
Jeff Clarke: An Artist Looks at Old Masters.
"Exhibition at Christ Church Picture Gallery. "
By: Julia Gasper. There are so many treasures in Oxford that we tend to take them for granted and, as residents, rarely bother to visit them. Instead of complaining about the tourists, perhaps we should follow their example more frequently. Christ Church Picture Gallery is one of these neglected gems and the present exhibition of drawings by old masters is a way to attract and stimulate more people to take an interest in it. The local Oxford artist, Jeff Clarke, RE, is currently showing a selection of his own paintings there and many of them feature the back streets of East Oxford, where he lives. It takes courage to display your own work alongside that of Holbien, Tintoretto, Correggio and Joshua Reynolds. However, there is one advantage Jeff has over them - his works are for sale and if you fancy one, you can buy it and hang it in your sitting-room! The exhibition of Old Master drawings from the college collection features work by Dürer, Pisanello and Claude le Lorrain, each one with a commentary by Jeff Clarke that reveals what another practising artist sees and appreciates about each drawing. Some a re only sketches, while others are completed engravings. I particularly liked Federico Zuccaro’s allegory of Art Triumphant over Ignorance and Calumny, and Dürer’s exquisite engraving of St. George, the archetypal hero-knight. There are drawings of Rome by Poussin and some chalk studies of a young man by Annibale Carraci that are full of movement and vitality. Likewise the remarkable Italian renaissance study of women dancing in classical robes attributed to the school of Mantegna. Among Pisanello’s drawings, the portrait of an old pilgrim stood out as a study of a strong, ugly bearded face. Anyone who goes to the drawings exhibition is free to look at the paintings in the main gallery, and I imagine most visitors will ask themselves why they don’t drop in more often. Among my favourites are the Tintoretto portrait of a man in a fur-trimmed jacket that would not be out of fashion today; the landscapes by Salvator Rosa showing craggy mountains and menacing cataracts; and the peaceful sylvan scene of Boats on a Lake by Gaspar Dughet, with its soft colours creating an idyllic mood. Don’t miss it! | ||
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