Renaissance portraits

Excellent course at the National Gallery on Renaissance portraits taught by Caroline Campbell and Gill Hart over two mornings.

I loved the mix on this course of an overview of the topic then concentrating on three pictures from the collection in more details, introducing them in the first week and revisiting them in the second.

Both of them talked about the relationship between the artist, commissioner and sitter and where some of the ideas in the works might have come from. They also looked at the relationship between the Northern and Southern Europe at this time and their influence on each other, seeing this as an  ongoing dialogue throughout the period.

The three main pictures which were discussed were Alesso Baldovinetti’s lady in a yellow dress, Titian’s man with a blue sleeve and Holbien’s the Ambassadors. We looked at each picture in some detail then talked about the different styles. We also looked at why they might have been painted and what input the sitters might have had. The tutors had brilliant high resolution magnifications of elements of the pictures which really helped to look at the detail. In particular I loved the light shining on the lady in yellows necklace.

Both weeks were followed by good Q&A session with some interesting ideas coming out of the audience and god discussions with the tutors.

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