Jan Gossaert’s Renaissance

Nice exhibition at the National Gallery looking at the career of the Netherlandish artist Jan Gossaert.
The exhibition aims to put Gossaert into context and re-establish him as one of the great artists of his day. I am not sure it succeeds. It is a good overview of his career and I am sure he was very innovative but the ideas he brought in were followed very quickly by others so it is hard to get a true view of how ground breaking he was. There are many excellent works in the show but because he was influence by many people and things you don’t get a sense of one artistic vision.

My favourite section was the portraits. The very focused views of men of the time with false frames behind them throwing them into your space were super and you can’t help but love the portrait of the small Danish princess.

It was also super to see his Adoration of the Magi with preparatory drawings and pictures which influenced the picture such as an etching of dogs by Durer.

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Independent

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