I love the walldrawings by contemporary artists. First in a long line of artists, there is Sol LeWitt. I witnessed the execution of several of his drawings in the rooms and staircases of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag and they fascinated me all.
Then there is Niele Toroni who makes his wall drawings with a single brush and color
and now there is another artist who i admire who have executed a permanent walldrawing, this time at the National Gallery. Yes,…this is permanent and a part of their collection. The last time i had seen a large walldrawing by Bridget Riley is when she executed one at the Gemeentemuseum in 2012 when she was presented the Sikkens prijs.
An excellent Leperello catalogue was published on that occasion
This beautiful leperello catalogue is available at www.ftn-books.com
Location: Annenberg Court
Spanning a vast 10 x 20 metres, the work comprises coloured discs painted directly onto the surface of the Gallery’s Annenberg Court.
The title, ‘Messengers’, is inspired by a phrase Constable used when referring to clouds, and might also be an allusion to the numerous angels, bearers of news, that we see in the skies of so many National Gallery pictures.
Painted directly onto the wall of the Annenberg Court, this abstract work carries influences from our historic collection over into the 21st century. Throughout art history, harmonies of colour have played a large part in pictorial composition.Taking as a point of departure the paintings of George Seurat, in particular Bathers at Asnières, Bridget Riley’s ‘Messengers’ transforms the Annenberg Court into a great white space in which coloured discs float as clouds drift in the lanes of the sky. By leaving after-images on the viewer’s retina that suggest volume and movement the longer it is perceived, the work becomes a tribute to its artistic predecessors and to the process of looking at art itself.
Bridget Riley (born 1931) has a long-standing relationship with the Gallery; she made copies of paintings in the collection including Jan van Eyck’s Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?), 1433, as a teenager as part of her portfolio when applying to Goldsmiths College, London, just after the end of the Second World War, and Georges Seurat’s Bathers at Asnières while training as an artist.
