artistic: July 2011

Swine flu? Credit crunch? Pub prices going up and up? If you think you've got it bad, cheer up - at least you weren't around in 1809.

Records published online for the first time today reveal that in parts of Briton you could expect to be dead before you were 24.

The data from parish files shows how London was among the most dangerous and unhealthy places on the planet only 200 years ago.

Ancestry.co.uk said the capital's records will cover a period from 1539 to 1980, including information on many of the 100,000 Londoners who died of Bubonic Plague between 1665 and 1666.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1213871/Over-24-Think-lucky--burial-records-reveal-short-lives-starving-Britons-1809.html#ixzz1SwCIAPwh

new display at the Walker Art Gallery will help those of us mourning the passing of the summer (what we had of it), cope with the transition.

'A study for A Summer Night', acquired for the gallery with assistance from the Art Fund charity, has gone on display alongside an accompanying preparatory watercolour and the final oil painting, both from the gallery’s permanent collection.

Seen together for the first time the trio reveal Moore made several changes to the composition, but that the vivid colours remained constant: primrose yellow and nocturnal blue. The lazy summer evening scene is a typical example of the Aesthetic movement, in which artists would strive to combine colour and mood.

The drawing was the earliest in the series (1884-6), followed by the watercolour (1890) with the final oil finished and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1890. Moore laid down the ideas in the initial sketch and used the watercolour to mark up a grid so that he could size up the study to oil painting dimensions. His dedication was such that he worked solidly on the painting for around three years.

It was his last major work before his death in 1893.