Thursday, June 14, 2007

The National Gallery Grand Tour

Shot with Olympus E500
The Grand Tour used to be the province of the wealthy upper class, who swanned about Europe from the 17th Century onwards and brought back loads of dodgy souveniers. Now you get the opportunity to join in without leaving London.


The National Gallery Grand Tour must be one of their very best ideas to bring art to the people by making it fun, interesting and involving. To quote their press release:
For twelve weeks, the streets of London are being turned into a Gallery - as around 30 full size recreations of National Gallery paintings are hung on the walls, in the most unexpected and unusual of places.
Apart fromt he pleasure of discovering the paintings, there is a load of information about them, on the signs, downloadable mp3, text, you name it.

To start, you visit their map or choose a tour and off you go. I did the Covent Garden lunchtime tour, this is The Haywain by Constable.


See where: London Daily Photo Map

posted by Ham at 00:06 -- Comments here: 10

Comments on "The National Gallery Grand Tour"

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (07:10) : 

What a great idea.

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (08:06) : 

Interesting idea.....

How long before one get's Banksy'd or El Chivo'd I wonder? It'll certainly be a lot easier to add in your own ones than in the gallery.

 

Blogger daniela said ... (09:22) : 

That's something really interesting!

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (10:33) : 

I'd like to think that this great idea will have the wonderful effect. That it will encourage people to make an effort - this is really a grand tour by the gallery not the viewers - and go to the National Gallery to see that fabulous collection.

 

Blogger John Nez said ... (15:21) : 

But what will Banksy do now?... what with the National Gallery hogging in on his territory? lol!

I take it the paintings are all waterproof... so a little spring rain won't do them any harm.

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (20:04) : 

This should get us out more: what a great idea.

And the printer can only be a Hewlett Packard, the sponsors, so hopefully they'll do quite well out of it since the reproductions are obviously spot on.

 

Blogger Jean said ... (15:22) : 

What a fabulous idea! Certainly worth copying.

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (14:57) : 

That was the image I used to have on my blog that I got a take down notice for from the National Galleries copyright bods last year (or maybe the year before).

My image was a photo of the original.

I wonder if they'll be after people displaying pictures of the pictures in the streets?

Given what they're now doing to publicise the paintings, their past moronic heavy-handedness makes me laugh...

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (18:37) : 

Yes, BW,

They make lotsa lotsa money from reproduction fees since they own the copyright of their paintings.

After a visit to Flatford Mill (where Constable painted the original) I also wanted to put this image on my blog. But I felt sure they wouldn't waive their reproduction fee. (The fees probably help them keep going as a gallery.)

Seems mean though, especially when it's our photographs.

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (09:35) : 

The Printer used for the reproductions was indeed a HP machine. But the printers who printed the works are independant and are from the Uk, a company called Electronic Printing Services www.eps-ltd.com I have seen there work many times like "Walking With Dinosaurs" and "Sharks" I love the reproductions and the National Gallery have realy got it right this time, lets have more of the same. Its wonderful to walk to work and brouse a gallery.

 

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Name: Ham Location: London, United Kingdom View my complete profile