Grand Tour Remix, The Art of Sandra Russell Clark, LSU Museum of Art, 2015
Italy, Grand Tour Remix
Beginning in the mid 17th century The Grand Tour was traditionally undertaken by aristocratic families from Northern Europe and England and later adopted by wealthy Americans. It served as an educational right of passage. Italy was the primary destination because of its rich cultural treasures, cities and breathtaking landscapes. This cultural pilgrimage reached its height during the 18th century and by the 19th century, as travel became safer and more affordable for the masses, modern tourism was born.
In 2012 my husband and I got the opportunity to study Renaissance painting in Italy and thus we began our own Grand Tour following in the footsteps of generations before us. Our trip was two fold. The first was to see the great paintings, sculpture, and architecture of that period. The second and more important aspect was to experience the cities and countrysides that were the birthplace and inspiration for these great treasures, taking from it all that it offers.
Over the next two months we traveled to the great cities of Rome, Florence, and Venice looking at architecture, churches and the incredible works of Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Piero Della Francesca. I was struck by their paintings, the sense of space and perspective and the soft muted colors and textures of the frescoes. I wanted to capture that essence of the frescoes but by using 21st century tools. I had just bought my first I phone for the trip and decided to use only that and experiment with the tools that were available to achieve my vision for this body of work.
As we search for clues from the past we can not help but bring in aspects of our contemporary culture, an accumulation of our own experiences and perceptions. I would like to engage the viewer to think of the pictorialist heritage but also about the differences between the original grand tourist epoch and our own. This gap in sensibility is distinctively a product of our own time and gives the photographs a special air of alienation, an alluring strangeness.
In 2012 my husband and I got the opportunity to study Renaissance painting in Italy and thus we began our own Grand Tour following in the footsteps of generations before us. Our trip was two fold. The first was to see the great paintings, sculpture, and architecture of that period. The second and more important aspect was to experience the cities and countrysides that were the birthplace and inspiration for these great treasures, taking from it all that it offers.
Over the next two months we traveled to the great cities of Rome, Florence, and Venice looking at architecture, churches and the incredible works of Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Piero Della Francesca. I was struck by their paintings, the sense of space and perspective and the soft muted colors and textures of the frescoes. I wanted to capture that essence of the frescoes but by using 21st century tools. I had just bought my first I phone for the trip and decided to use only that and experiment with the tools that were available to achieve my vision for this body of work.
As we search for clues from the past we can not help but bring in aspects of our contemporary culture, an accumulation of our own experiences and perceptions. I would like to engage the viewer to think of the pictorialist heritage but also about the differences between the original grand tourist epoch and our own. This gap in sensibility is distinctively a product of our own time and gives the photographs a special air of alienation, an alluring strangeness.
