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poliphilo ([personal profile] poliphilo) wrote2009-03-18 10:09 am

Day Trip To Liverpool

We went to Liverpool on St. Patrick's day.  We thought we might run into lots of people wearing green trousers and silly hats, but we didn't. In fact the cultural quarter round the Albert Dock- with its galleries and expensive shops- was quieter than we'd ever seen it. Blame the recession.

We took in three exhibitions at the Tate. Firstly a room devoted to William Blake, then our main objective (because it parallels Ailz's OU course) the two floors of The Twentieth Century How It Looked And Felt, thirdly the Glenn Brown retrospective. Brown makes art about art (doesn't everyone these days?) and has the trick of getting flat paintwork to look like heavy impasto. He does epic sci-fi landscapes- blown-up and adapted from the covers of mass-market paperbacks, sinister reworkings of paintings by the old masters and portrait things that aren't portraits at all but cruddy masses of faux-impasto. He's weird- which is merely a tendentious way of saying he's doing things no-one else has ever thought of doing before- and that's good, isn't it?

They have a very good cafe at the Tate. Ailz had a scone with cream and jam and I had a caramelised lemon tart.



As an afterthought we drove along the waterfront- past the docks where the rich people keep their yatchts- and stopped off at the Anglican cathedral- a 20th centrury gothic pile that always makes me think of Quasimodo.




[identity profile] lblanchard.livejournal.com 2009-03-18 12:51 pm (UTC)(link)
"A room devoted to William Blake".....

*swoon*

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2009-03-18 01:19 pm (UTC)(link)
The Tate must have the biggest collection of Blake anywhere.
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[identity profile] glitzfrau.livejournal.com 2009-03-18 01:09 pm (UTC)(link)
The dhrunk Paddies were up by the station. In their scads!

I've never been to the cathedral - is it worth a look?

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2009-03-18 01:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh yes. It's like a cathedral in a expressionist movie- unfeasibly massive and shadowy.
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[identity profile] glitzfrau.livejournal.com 2009-03-18 01:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh wow, I should pack my film classes off there forthwith! Ace!

[identity profile] sorenr.livejournal.com 2009-03-18 07:56 pm (UTC)(link)
It really is an almost absurdly caricatured version of a Gothic cathedral. I love the sheer vastness of it, especially from the outside where the warm reddish colour of the stone makes it seem so much more earthen than the much eerier Gothic cathedrals in pale limestone.

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2009-03-18 08:16 pm (UTC)(link)
I've never been entirely sure whether I like it or not, but it's certainly impressive.

[identity profile] solar-diablo.livejournal.com 2009-03-18 02:02 pm (UTC)(link)
That statue in front of the cathedral strikes me as decidedly pagan.

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2009-03-18 08:17 pm (UTC)(link)
He's a weird looking little gnome. I suppose he must be meant to be Christ.

[identity profile] mummm.livejournal.com 2009-03-18 02:14 pm (UTC)(link)
What a great trip! ART!!! The Tate! I would love it.

Is Aliz enjoying her course? Some of the Contemporary work is... a bit hard to digest. *L*

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2009-03-18 09:21 pm (UTC)(link)
She found the first essay tough- but then so- apparently- did everyone else. She's really enjoying the studying, though.

[identity profile] jackiejj.livejournal.com 2009-03-19 12:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Hello Ailz, wearing green!

I like your photographs so much-such good compositions! Especially the yellow flowers in the grass.

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2009-03-19 12:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you.

Those are narcissi I think. Spring is here!