Chatsworth House Visit

So the other week we went on a trip to Chatsworth House, i didnt really know too much about it other than the Duke and Dutchess of Devonshire live there descending from many other generations in their family. I collected some leaflets to get a good idea of whats on and what sort of activities you can do at the house which will also help with research in other projects.

 Narrative

The size and detail of the rooms was amazing i took so many pictures on my camera and on my phone, just looking at one small ornament or wall piece i could take lots of detailed shots that as a collective told a story about the piece or about history of the family. This strong theme of narrative reminds me of the work we are currently studying, A Rakes Progress by William Hogarth. It was from his innovative work at the time that started a new movement of narrative and story telling through paintings which then turned into a more modernised comic strip.

 Contemporary Art

Within the house itself it had a small number of modern pieces that when put into such a historically preserved house contrasted and worked with its surroundings.

Michael Craig Martin

Digital Portrait of Lady Burlington

James Rigler

Interior

The interior of the house had extravagant and over the top decorations to show wealth and class, having pieces imported from abroad such as materials or paintings shows wealth as many people from the 1600s could not afford such luxuries. This relates to my work i am doing now to do with class and taste, how people today who are middle class may pretend or show they are rich by buying over the top items to show off. This reminded me of a documentary on recently by Grayson Perry called All In the Best Possible Taste.This was all about how different classes have varying tastes in material items and what this reflects about that class.

The full series-

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/in-the-best-possible-taste-grayson-perry/4od

Sculpture



 I got some influences and ideas from the sculpture inside the house, the materials they were made from such as bronze created interesting and varying effects that made me think about how i use tone, contrast and texture within my own life drawing work. From this i want to work more on these and maybe do some practise sketches from the photos i have to taken focusing on each point for each sketch. I also found that the poses the sculptures were in told a story and a strong narrative.

This was my favourite of all the sculptures within the house as its just so unusual to see a sculpture of a black person within a home of a white British family. This was part of a series of bronze sculptures all showing people of different races and ethnicity's, the fact they have been produced in bronze and not usual marble or another stone i found was different, im not sure whether there is a link to this or whether it was a popular and readily available material of the time so i need to do further research into this.