London Touristing: Tate Britain

Note: It may help the mood of this post to listen to this recording of Rule Britannia while you read. Or maybe this one of He is an Englishman.

Tate Britain (and Tate Modern) were originally put on our London List based exclusively on name recognition. I didn't know anything about either of them really, except that many tourists claimed they were must-see sites. As the museums in London are all free, it's possible to visit on an unplanned afternoon and only stay for an hour or two without feeling guilty. Since Joe had a rare Saturday day shift yesterday and I was free, that's exactly what I decided to do.

Tate Britain boasts "500 Years of British Art" and encourages visitors to "Walk Through British Art" by winding along their chronologically organized rooms. Before my visit, I downloaded the Tate Britain app for my phone, which allowed me to listen to the free audioguide as I wandered. Each room is labeled by a metal year set into the floor at the entrance; choose the proper year and you get a room overview as well as descriptions of a few exemplary pieces by the museum's curators.

1810 Room: a comparison of pieces on the Battle of Waterloo (1815); The bust of the first Duke of Wellington glorifies the man who won the battle (and thus the battle itself); the painting by JMW Turner illuminates the tragedy and suffering of war.

1780 Room: This gallery highlighted the tendency of artists in the late 18th century to use British literature for inspiration in art. It included James Barry's painting of the scene in King Lear in which the king finds his only loyal daughter dead.

1840 Room: The tradition of using characters and scenes from British literature continued in the 19th century. "The Lady of Shallott" by John William Waterhouse, based on the poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, is another example.

1930s room: "Miss Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies as Isabella of France" by Walter Richard Sickert caught my attention because of its obvious anachronism. The Elizabethan dress combined with the modern painting style is striking.

1970s Room: This painting of "Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy" by David Hockney also caused a doubletake as it seems at once familiar to typical artistic tropes - couple at home with pet, positioned naturally, surrounded by the stuff of their life - but at the same time so unusual because of the twentieth century clothing and objects where I am accustomed to seeing the aristocracy of centuries past painted this way.

1980s Room: By this point, much of the art was in the form of multi-media installations. This piece, "Elephant" by Bill Woodrow, was made of car doors, maps, an ironing board, and a vacuum cleaner.

My visit to Tate Britain was short on a cold, windy day. The gallery is just along the river and a bit out of the way to the west - further afield from most London sites than many of the other fantastic art museums, particularly The National Gallery or Tate Modern. I enjoyed my visit because it was relaxed and low pressure, possibly not what I would feel if I were actually touristing and had limited time. I was surprised by the modern art, particularly because I assumed that all modern examples had been moved to Tate Modern when it opened. I look forward to pulling these pieces up again when I teach the literature that inspired so many of them.