The Degas Exhibition

So while we were south for Bloody Scotland, and a bit of house related stuff, we also took in the big Degas Exhibition at the Burrell in Glasgow. It was actually an exhibition about Scottish Art Collectors  and their relationship to Degas' work, but Burrell was an early buyer so that fitted. 

I was a weeny bit disappointed to be honest. There was a lot of information about the men who bought Degas' pictures, and exhibits which detailed which ones they bought, for how much and sometimes how much they later sold them for. Interesting if you're digging through an archive and discovering it for yourself; not so much if you're presented with it  in a glass case. There weren't as many artworks by Degas as I expected and honestly the ones I saw in the Musee d'Orsay were much nicer. However there was a nice spread; some ballet dancers, some street women and laundresses, and some horses, so fairly representative. 

The two problems I had with it all were 1) it was spread over a large area and because my knee was still highly compromised at that point I had to keep finding somewhere to sit down. And that's personal to me and nothing to do with the exhibition. Secondly the lighting was at a stupidly low level. I read all the signs about fragility of the work and needing to protect it and that's fine, but I've never ever ever walked round an exhibition that was so dim. The lighting was so low that it meant many of the  colours in the paintings were completely wrongly perceived. And that problem was on them.

Finally, as always they never seem to have postcards of the paintings I like; the one above was the closest. I did like that picture which is rather more engaging in real life than in post card form but it wasn't my favourite. 

We're going south again shortly, mainly so that I can attend the Glasgow School of Yarn, but we're also planning a trip to the V & A in Dundee to see the Kimono exhibition there and I'm really looking forward to that. Hoping for some good postcards there!