GR8 USE OF TXT BUT NOT GR8 CAUZ

Delighted to see the National making use of QR codes but saddened by the use case.

The National's QR code was real easy to  use; seamlessly making link from the real to the virtual world and back again. I scanned the code using an app on my iPhone almost by return I was presented with a text  message screen ready for me to text 'POUSSIN' to the short code 70880 so no need to type in the number. Making it no problem  to donate £5 via my iPhone to the cause - raise £4M  of the £14M required to ‘save’ Poussin’s Extreme  Unction (Final Anointing) for the Cambridge’s  Fitzwilliam Museum and the nation as it was a 'national treasure'.

Extreme  Unction (Final Anointing)  [1638 -1640]

But I have to ask WHY? Couldn’t the National loan one of it’s 16 (sixteen) Poussin’s to the Fitzwilliam. In doing so free the £4M to fund some contemporary - local or international - art to inspire and enrich.

Yes, Posssin is important  but the nation has enough of his works,  in fact it is awash with Poussin’s paintings.  Poussins  can be found in Cambridge (they have one already so why be greedy?) Cardiff, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Liverpool  as well as in the collections of a number of Dukes.

So the nation is not short of a Poussin or two including several quintessential - 'national treasure' - Poussins  for example A Bacchanalian Revel before a Term 

A Bacchanalian Revel before a Term [1623-28]

So any artist in search of Poussinian education or inspiration  can easily seek out good examples of his characteristic painting style:

• Linear frieze and triangular compostions
• Use of primary and complimentary colours
• History painting composition with its roots in the Renaissance work of Michelangelo and Raphael   
• The painting’s narrative is revealed  thru gesture, body movement, hand and eye co-ordination
• History or the Bible as the inspirational basis for each painting 

Just as so many artists have done  including David, Ingres, Cezzanne and even Picasso  in times past.

So, to conclude great to see this use of  'new technology' making the link from the real to virtual world  but let Extreme Unction go and use the money raised to help fund contemporary art we have enough Poussins!

Team GB Kit Uses Ideas Seen In Leonardo da Vinci and 18th Century Horse Painter Paintings

Stella McCartney’s Team GB’s kit for the Olympics 2012 is my first chance to combine my interest in contemporary art and my Games Maker role in London.  I believe she has made masterful use of colour  and design to create not just specific and highly functional items of sportswear but an iconic, individual look and feel to for Team GB.

Her use of colour has come under attack as many argue there is not enough red attracting headlines such as the Guardian’s  22 March 2012 on the Internet Absence of red in outfits criticised by sports psychologist. Stella responded to this populist disapproval with a defiant tweet “The design actually uses more red & shows more flag than any Team GB kit since '84.”

I would argue her use of colour is brilliant and subtle taking full advantage of the eye’s physiological responses to a trick of perspective known and used by artist for centuries: the lighter the blue hue the more distant an object appears behind the picture plane while the colour red creates the opposite effect  as red objects appear to come out of the picture plane when set against an apparently distant blue object: the picture below demonstrates this visual effect.

The picture plane seems anchored by the black TEAM GB while the light blue TEAM GB  is perceived as behind the picture plane while the deep red TEAM GB is in front of the picture plane.

Leonardo used the effect in The Mona Lisa (1504)  where the distance rocks in the background behind the Madonna’s head are  painted in the palest of blues.  George Stubbs used the same effect in his painting William Anderson with Two Saddled Horses, 1793 the rider’s distinctive red frock coat makes him and his horse appear to be closer to the viewer than the riderless horse despite the reverse to be true on closer inspection. With the picture being given added depth by the persepcively distant mountains are in light blue.

Detail from Mona Lisa

Stubbs William Anderson with Two Saddled Horses, 1793

Stella’s use of red and blue has exactly those visual affects seen in the Leonardo and the Stubbs: reds advancing  effect is the first thing one seems to see when set against the kit’s dark and light blues . So the red of the Union jack is there it just does not appear to dominate the kit but it is the very first thing you see when you look at the kit – look again at the photo shoot picture.

Stella’s design reduces the red, white and blue of the  Union Jack to a monochrome design with different tones replacing the flags iconic colours. In doing so she creates a whole new palette of design elements taken from – a gold flag, a red flag, a blue flag - as exemplified by the background to the press release images.

She creatively takes these monochrome design fragments of the Union Jack – light and dark blue triangles and rectangles supported by even darker blue  rectangles. Collectively these fragments create the effect of being wrapped in the Union Jack as seen in the BMX star Shanaze Reade’s kit.

To conclude, Stella uses the iconic elements of the Union Jack   – its colours and its shapes -  to create a wonderfully diverse range of kits for the 38 Olympic and 22 Paralympic sports; maintaining each sport’s individuality  yet uniting the Team collectively under the Union Jack in a dramatic, eye-catching  twenty-first century look and feel, she is to be congratulated not castigated. It takes a step on the road to to the super human performances needed to win gold!

Wonderfully Weathered Wood In Dortmund

As all the usual hotels I stay at in at Dortmund were full I was forced to stay at an anonymous, box like hotel on a dreek Industrial Estate(IE) on the edge of the city. To add insult to injury I was charged a rip-off rate taking advantage of the city being full. – normally for B&B in Dortmund I pay 55 Euro tonight it was paying 99.5 Euro – 4 star price at 1 star hotel.

To cheer myself up the next morning I went for stroll around the estate and to my delight and surprise came across Hecker’s in the middle of this wasteland of functional buildings and spaces. Hecker’s was a conventional IE building – built as a price per square foot modernist box with much use of glass and steel and metal cladding with little architectural imagination and surrounded by assiduously marked out car parking space, with a grassed area to the side.

The grassed area was serene - a little oasis - a pool surrounded by steep banks with mixed green vegetation and the most wonderful, roughly-hewn, slenderly-shaped wooden figures and shapes in groups of three. The figures rose like totems commanding the space around them.

The whole Hecker plot and building was decorated with these wonderfully weathered wooden figures and shapes often in groups of three  Not so much a building and a car park more a sculpture park on a par with Yorkshire Sculpture  Park.  A pleasing distraction from the depression of the hotel and the Industrial Estate and their dour glass, steel and concrete edifices  A very pleasant surprise!