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Tate visitors turn art experts


Newton by William Blake 1795/circa 1805 Ever been baffled by a work of art in a gallery?
Wondered where William Blake's subject matter came from, or why Francis Bacon painted the way he did?

You look for an explanation and find the accompanying description is equally confusing. Not any more...


Visitors to Tate Britain who are baffled by official descriptions of works of art are being invited to write their own captions.

The best captions will be displayed beside works by artists from Blake and Turner to Bacon and Emin on the walls of the gallery.

"This initiative gives us an opportunity to reflect the clear passion felt by our visitors..."
Tate Britain director
Stephen Deuchar

Director Stephen Deuchar told BBC London he was particularly keen to hear contributions from people who might know more about the subject matter than the experts.

"I'm looking forward to reading the thoughts and ideas of our visitors," he said.

Tate Britain holds the national collection of British art from 1500 to the present day and contains important work by all the great masters of British art including Hogarth, Stubbs, Constable and the Pre-Raphaelites.

A consistently refreshed series of rooms also displays some of the best in British contemporary art, featuring prize winners such as Rachel Whiteread, Richard Long and Tracey Emin.

South Bank Circle by Richard Long 1991 Holland Park Avenue Study by Mark Boyle 1967
South Bank Circle by artist and sculptor Richard Long, 1991
Holland Park Avenue Study by
artist Mark Boyle, 1967

Mr Deuchar said: "This initiative gives us an opportunity to reflect the clear passion felt by our visitors, some of whom make pilgrimages to see the icons in the BP British Art Displays, while complementing the scholarly texts that accompany the works".

Visitors to the Tate website can also submit their captions online.

A spokeswoman for the Tate said they would particularly like to hear from visitors who have a special interest in the subject matter of some of the works, such as music, fashion, botany, theology or engineering.

Those who live near or who have visited a place shown in one of the landscapes, which range from Hampstead Heath to Clapton Park Estate, are also encouraged to submit their own caption descriptions.

The first selection of public submissions will be placed alongside the works for the launch of British Art Week, supported by BP, on 20 September.

How do you think you rate as a potential art expert? Can you supply a few lines for a caption or descriptive label for the two works of art shown on this page? Send us your ideas.



Write in your caption here
Your name:
Your message:

Your Comments

Tony Craig
Ifin das art, den ize a artist.

Mbali
Great work!! I love the way you express your emotions through your artwork!! Shine!!

Tony, London, Canada
Spam and Chips

guillermo riojas m.
i think is veri contradict the form

Martin Barrett
I have always admired Mark Boyle's work. Randomly selected aspects of the world that remind us of the the sublime beauty of the every day. Also maybe a comment that everything can be art and anybody can make art. To call yourself an artist doesn't necessarily mean that everything you make is art.

Peter Vee
Shrapnel from the "Big Bang!"

Zara B
It fitted in the box before!!

Hannah Flynn
Blake has depicted Newton as recapturing innocence. The physist is depicted nude, oblivious to his nudity, focusing only on the mathemeatics that he is working on. Newton is raised by the colourful rock symbolising the awe at the natural world that he is experiencing, using his understanding of mathematics to aid his contemplation. By being raised above his work by the rock Blake reminds us of Newton's famous claim that if he had seen further "it was by standing on the shoulders of giants." Here the giants are innocence and the natural world.

John C
Weighty magnetic attraction enclosed by and in a womb = visual tension, excitement, latent energy.

a LINCOLN
the artist is being extra!

AMBER
I LOVE THAT SORT OF STUFF LOVE IT FLAT OUT LOVE IT

Martin Maher
Goodbye Yellow Strip Road. A post modernist statement on the shallowness of western materialism and the search for a new philosophy that leads to a more enlightened Emerald City. For those interested the yellow strip dream disappears just west of the Shepherd's Bush roundabout.

christine
holland park avenue study.two different textures indicating the difference between safety and the stepping into a territory of unknown danger.

gerry taggart
1. can you feel the power of the gladiators?? - 2. this work represents the artists self indulgence and his ability to trick the audience into believing it actually had a meaning at the time its of capture.

nina shore, portsmouth
South Bank Circle by Richard Long is constructed with broken slate pieces isn't a circle. its infinite angles are broken by the edges of the slate showing the jagged danger of society.

Stuart
the circle represents the broken parts of the circle line (underground)

Alan Gee
Richard Long's South Bank Circle is not a circle. Where the edges of the slate ends simply suggests a circle. The contradiction between the declaration in the title of the pure shape of a circle and the actuality of a collection of rough an jagged shards of slate is what this work is all about. The circle carries many connotations: life, harmony, stability, order…. and again there is that tension between the disorder of the slate slabs and the imposed order of the artist. Or is the artist trying to suggest that nature though appearing to be chaotic has at its core order. Or again, as humans do we try to see order in chaos. In the end the power of such artworks is to make us think, to give us a puzzle to decode and to elude any ultimate meening

Ritchie
'South bank Circle' it was done better in the sixties!

Preet Shihn
South bank circle: The magnetic alignment that depicts the urge to unite

julie
it is as iron ore felt once adn while collecting itself-it rested

Allan
South Bank Circle by Richard Long reminds me of a circling school of fish. Humans, like fish, huddle together for kinship or protection from their enemies. These slivers of slate coalesce into an organic whole which softens their individual wedge-like shapes. Human communities also soften the edges of their members.

p. hallett
A circle made of slate indicates life revolving.

merriam shoob
circle type particle is a simple and easy touched sampl of meeting ,touching,crossing and cutting objects,but its even hard to find them as a just simple thing....its mindfull

Lemming
1.black slate stakes 2. the yellow line now has a meaning.

Pixie
Holland Park Avenue Study is a simplistic yet immensely thought provoking piece, showing the understated items of everyday living, yet highlighting an view that so many people take for granted every day.

Sue Almeida
Lines, form, conformity. Black, grey, dull. The one bright thing to cling to, the yellow line, like the yellow brick road, it will ultimately lead to the Emerald City where all your dreams will come true, or you will return home, back to the beginning to start again.

Sue Almeida
The circle of life, it’s very simple, beautiful and a smooth ride on the surface, but watch out for the deep silos that nestle between the smooth pieces, ultimately most of us end up there and try for the rest of our life to reach the top smooth surface again.

Sue
At first glance it looked like chunks of bitter sweet chocolate. Random. Free flow.Uniquely sized and shaped blocks. Merging to form a whole. Collabration. Breathing spaces.Solid. Movement and unity.

NILGUN ILKBAHAR
1. FREELY CONNECTED 2. MANNED EARTH 2.

Mike Nugent
Holland Park Ave, colour line and form, all things to examine in a apinting found in the real world.

Mike Nugent
A circle is a perfect form, here made of imperfect forms. A metaphor for Life.

chow hao wen
it seems black and scary like charcoal. its like those stakes you use to kill vampires. haha

Kel Norris
Element'ary, "The maze of life"

sam crino
Richard Longs` "Southbank Circle"- The ultimate circle of life is composed of multiple segments which when experienced seem quite haphazzard.

Markus Diersbock
Straight lines and right-angles do not appear in nature's architecture -- they are uniquely human. Nature is present in the urban landscape, but is rigidly recast: rows of equally-spaced trees flanking an avenue, stone crushed and shaped as block, sand melted into windows and street lamps. Mark Boyle's "Holland Park Avenue Study" reveals nature's redesign in the most common.

Linda Sitterding
an aggregate log jam with the intersections and interstices of life

Jimbo
Mark Boyle's Holland Park Avenue Study is a masterpiece of showing you just what's under your nose. As well as showing the painterly surroundings - the markings, symbols, textures and materials we are surrouonded with and take totally for granted

Find more at: Tate/ Write Your Own (The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites).

Now jump to our Galleries section for more on London's visual arts scene

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