Lowry at the Tate Britain

St Augustine Church, Pendlebury

My preconception of the exhibition was that I wasn’t going to enjoy Lowry’s work; I thought it would be too childlike and simple. How wrong I was. I found it very thought provoking and touching. The paintings showed everyday life as seen through Lowry’s eyes, and depicted events such as going to and from work, eviction from houses... the paintings were often showing a sad event, and were very melancholy. I really loved the paintings of churches, with the graves picked out like little figures, and also the large paintings of panoramic views over the towns. When you got close to the paintings you found there wasn’t much detail, and you could see how Lowry had used a few brush strokes to form a person, this gave movement to the paintings, but you really had to stand back to get the effect. Too close and you lost the detail. Paintings by other artists were included, I think to show Lowry’s influences. For me this wasn’t needed. I felt that Lowry came across as a really individual painter, and I paid little attention to this. I didn’t like the paintings where Lowry had tried to paint in the detail of peoples’ faces, and showed the people very close up. For me this was too simplistic. The whole exhibition was very thought provoking, and I came away from it feeling sad that nothing much had changed, that Lowry had captured the monotonous events of everyday life. I would be very interested to visit the Lowry Museum in Manchester, and to see more of his work.

Returning from work