Yale Center for British Art

On Saturday May 12, 2007 I visited the Yale Center for British Arts. Visiting the Yale museums was nice for the fact that they were both free admission. If I were to do it again I would have gone to both the Yale Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art on the same day. I did not realize that they are pretty much directly across a street from one another.



Paul Mellon presented the Yale Center for British Art to the University in 1929. It houses the most comprehensive collection of British art outside the United Kingdom. It is not only a public art museum it is also a world-renowned research institute for the study of British art and culture. The center is the last museum designed by the great American architect Louis Kahn, who also designed the Yale Art Gallery.
As I was walking through the museum I noticed that there are quite a few portraits. The whole 4th floor seemed to be filled with them, so I didn’t spend too much time here seeing as they did not interest me as much as the others. I also noticed that there were quite a few paintings with horses. Just like this painting by Sir Alfred Munnings, Start at Newmarket: Study No. 4.



I really enjoyed this painting by Thomas Malton called Interior of St.Paul's Cathedral, ca. 1792. This was painted with watercolor, pen and ink over graphite on laid paper laid down on card. I really enjoy the detail in this painting. The halls seem to go on forever almost like it is three-dimensional.




The picture I chose is from Joseph Wright is called the Cottage on Fire at Night. Joseph Wright, byname Wright of Derby, was born in Irongate, Derby on September 3, 1734. He was an English painter who pionerred in the artistic treatment of industrial subjects. He was also the best European painter of artificial light of his day. Wright was trained as a portrait painter by Thomas Hudson in the 1750s. Wright's home was Derby, one of the great centres of the birth of the Industrial Revolution, and his depictions of scenes lit by moonlight or candlelight combine the realism of the new machinery with the romanticism involved in its application to industry and science.



I was really fascinated by how to orange color of the fire radiates throughout the painting, as it get brighter to darker. It also amazes me how the shadows in the painting follow the fire. It is easy to see how he can be classified as the best European painter of artificial light in his day.
The Yale Center for British Art was a very nice museum. The only thing I did not like is that it was not as diverse as the rest of the museums, for obvious reasons. Being a museum of British Art I missed seeing the types of art I have come to look forward to over the past weeks, especially modern art. I have come out of my museum experiences with a better appreciation of famous art that is within driving distance.