Manchester Evening

The excursion this afternoon proved a lot of fun. The parents and I caught a tram across Manchester to visit the Lowry Gallery. Frank Lowry was a quiet sort of guy who painted English industrial landscapes and street scenes all through the first half of the 20th century. I've had a print of "The Village Square" hanging outside my bedroom door ever since I was small, and hadn't ever regarded it particularly highly.

"He's got the colours all wrong", I always thought - "you don't ever see colours as washed-out as those, not even in the city.

Well, you don't get them in Australian cities, no. But now I have seen Manchester, where he lived and painted, I realise Lowry really WAS painting his subjects accurately. And I suddenly have a much higher appreciation for his artworks. He seems to have been one of these artists who could paint realistically if he really wanted to, but chose the subversive option instead, and kept right on doing his quirky little caricatures of people on the street.

Mum and I came back by way of Manchester Art Gallery, and saw a wonderful exhibition full of Holman Hunt's paintings and drawings. I have been a Pre-Raphaelite fangirl ever since I discovered the movement, and to see some of the originals face-to-face was incredible. You can't make out the details of his brushstrokes in a print! I am in awe all over again. :)

Now I'm fending off sleep until a reasonable hour - trying not to let jet-lag get the better of me.