West End, Colourmen and The Turner Appreciation Society

London, day 2.

The general itinery seemed to split itself into West End, East End, and today we head off towards Covent Garden and the west end shops. I have enduring memories of visiting Covent Garden Market as a child, though my last quick visit was dissapointing to an extent. It certainly seems to be the case that a large part of the market has been taken over by food, and more “home-ish” type affairs, though today was antiques day. It’s also the case that much of the West End seems to open at 10 (or later).

Bucket List number 2 – Dishoom again for Breakfast, to try the sausage Nan. We looked round the market and there was a lot of intersting things, but not really in the market for antiques (many of questionable provenance) we set on a wander. I will just add at this point, that with the public toilets closed, the London Transport Museum cafe refusing to let me use theirs, even though we had been buying things in the shop, I have never in my life had to pay £1.50 for a shit, even if there was a string quartet playing outside.

But there was always some opportunity for a bit of photography on the way.

The aim of this wander was my main excitement about coming to London – L. Cornelissen and Sons. This little gem in the heart of Fitzrovia was historically founded by founded by Louis Cornelissen, a lithographer from Belgium, reputedly on the advice of a certain J. M. W. Turner. The current shop dates from 1988, but retains gorgeous Victorian interior features. It’s small, but intense – really quite something, and alongside all the major brands sells some intriguing products. Again I could have spent my entie savings in one fell swoop.

My main interest was pigments, as Cornelissens sells some hard to find examples – and of course just seeing the place. The jars, upon jars of colour are just amazing.

The small dissapointment of the trip was that they had no viridian in stock to buy on the day, but I bought a few exciting colours: Blue Verditer (PB30), Synthetic Malachite (PG39), real Smalt (PB32), Cadmium Green (PY35, PG26), Spinel Black (PBk26) and Tartrazine Yellow Lake (PY100). Oh I coould have bought so many more. I also picked up some Brazilwood and “Victoria Woolf” (made from Buckthorn Berries) inks. You will see more about these wonders very soon.

We took a slightly circuitous route through the west end shops, via Chinatown to Fortnum and Mason – this was in principle great, but over crowded, over hot and became somewhat tiresome – the behaviour round the reduced section was akin to that of people in Morrisons – class does not breed politeness it seems. I bought, in Bertie Wooster style, a “half-bot” of claret, and some tea though. £17 tea, nonetheless. It had to be done, I suppose.

Hamleys was rammed, Burlington Arcade suitably high-brow. We jumped on a train at Oxford Road and headed to Pimlico.

Ahh. Silence. To fair, I find the whole Carnaby Street, Regent Street, Picadilly etc far too busy in general. After a pint, we were headed for The Tate.

This of course was my next aim, to see some more of the works of Turner. My partner hates Turner for some reason. I have been developing an interest, mainly due to the fact we know a lot about him and it is inetresting historically – though I do love a lot of his work.

The most interesting part for me was seeing some of his “colour beginnings” or unfinished pieces. I could have taken a ream of photos, but even though his work is obviously in the public domain I feel rude doing so in galleries, but I did take a few details to inspire my practice, and obtained a couple of books to work from.

This was quite tiring in the end, so we went back for a nap after that and then finished the evening in a lovely Greek restaurant in St Pancras, and a pint in a good old London Pub.