Gwen John Paintings

Went to see the Gwen John paintings today in the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, and was very impressed, nourished and inspired by what I saw there. I made sketches of the paintings, plus bought postcards that will be going in my logbook with a full write up on what I saw and thought of the paintings, but for now I'll just say there were stunning, ethereal, elegant and deeply dignified. You could smell the Parisian air in the paintings of her room in Paris.

I was really pleased when I said to the curator, who took me into the vaults where the oil paintings were stored, that a painting by John of a still life on the table, though seen from a distance, reminded me of the still lives by Morandi, because of the quiet dignity in them, and the hazy way of painting, and she said she'd often thought that about the similarity between the two artists, especially as they were both quite obsessive about their specific subject matters, painting them over and over again. It pleased me that I'd made an observation about her work that a professional curator agreed with - and I've never read in any book about this similarity in style!

I also bought a long handled hogs hair brush from the art shop in Cardiff, ready to do some textural, expressive oil paintings ala Lucian Freud - though maybe not of nude people yet! I've got another book on Lucian Freud to read called "The artist at work" plus one of Gwen John. So for now I will go and do some reading.