Hello People,
Last Sunday I visited the Dulwich
Picture Gallery SE21 with Rosie, my beautiful wife. Dulwich is also beautiful,
and very wealthy. Because of this, I decided to wear a monocle and top hat so as
to not stand out too much. The first thing I saw as we walked through the main
gate was group of friends sitting outside the Gallery, sipping Prosecco and
playing cards. I nodded to them as we walked past, and they stared at me wide
eyed and open mouthed. Maybe the top hat was a bit much.
 |
| Dulwich Picture Gallery Garden |
Rosie visited the Dulwich Picture
Gallery when she was 8 years old, and she was so impressed with it that when
she returned home, she told her parents that one day she would work in a museum
herself. Rosie works for the British Museum now, keeping the mummies
entertained when they come alive at night. Or something like that.
Rose told me all about how the old
masters had to create their paints from scratch. Using plants and ground up
insects to experiment with colours. So I said, “Why didn’t they just buy the
paint from B&Q?”
“Because there was no B&Q” she
replied.
“Fascinating”
We walked a little further, and I
asked, “Rose, how did the Dulwich Picture Gallery come to exist?” And
this is what she told me.
“The story of Dulwich Picture Gallery
is one of passion and chance. It begins with a man called Edward Alleyn – Ned
to his friends – who lived from 1566-1626. Ned was one of the greatest stage actors
who ever lived. He starred in three plays by Phillip Marlow – it’s believed
that Marlow created the parts especially for him. When he retired from acting -
at the height of his fame in 1598, Queen Elizabeth is said to have requested he
return to the stage. If he was alive today he almost certainly would have had a
spell as Doctor Who – he was that good. Sadly we will never get to see old Ned
tread the boards, although Ben Affleck did portray him in the film ‘Shakespeare
in Love.’ So until we have Red Dwarf style hologram technology, that’ll have to
do.
 |
| Edward Alleyn |
Ned became a rich man, and in 1617 he
bought Dulwich Manor, and founded what was to become Dulwich College. When he
died, he left all his art-work to the college. Over time the collection
steadily grew until 1795, when our story takes a bit of a twist.
In 1790 two London Art dealers, Noel
Desenfans and Sir Francis Bourgeouis were commissioned by the King of Poland to
form a royal collection. Noel and Francis spent the next five years travelling
around Europe buying art, and building a collection that any Polish King would
be proud of. Sadly for them, before they could flog their fancy pictures, the
King abdicated and left them massively out of pocket. To make things worse,
Noel and Francis were very particular about who they sold the collection too.
They wanted to be certain the art went to the right home, so in the end they
decided to keep, and add to it. In 1807 Noel died, and left all the collection
to Francis. In 1811 he died and, on the advice of his friend John Kemble (another
famous actor), he left the collection to Dulwich College on the condition that the
works were to be displayed in a new gallery constructed by his friend, the
famous architect, John Soane .
Francis left £2,000 for the building
of the gallery and his widow Margaret donated a further £4,000. Although this
was a very generous amount, it was not enough for Soane to build the gallery.
Soane cut costs where he could, such as making all his students work on the
project for free. And what he produced is considered to be one of the finest
examples of gallery architecture in Britain. And so Dulwich picture Gallery was
born, and it became the first public art gallery in England.”
 |
| Dulwich Picture Gallery |
When she had finished speaking, I
said,
“Wow, you know a lot about history. And
you laid it all out in such a clear way. So Dulwich is the town that gave art
to the masses?”
“That’s right.” she replied.
And with that I threw off my top hat.
Grabbed the monocle from my eye, and smashed it on the floor*, they were
symbols of an elitism in art that I now know no longer exists, and all thanks
to Dulwich. With a little help from a few famous actors, architects and art
lovers along the way.
“Why did you do that?” Rose asked.
“Symbolism. Come on Rose, let’s get
some Prosecco.”
Come visit the Gallery, to see some
masterpieces, or learn to draw for yourself.
*I had to clean up the glass before leaving the gallery.
No comments:
Post a Comment