Beyond Caravaggio

Clever exhibition at the National Gallery looking at the influence of Caravaggio.

I was pleased I knew my Caravaggio well as there were only a few of his works in the show but it referred to many other just showing them as small reproductions on some of the labels. While I’m mentioning labels can I make a plea to bring back the small booklets the National Gallery used to produce with the labels in them? It really helped the flow of an exhibition and stopped bottle necks of the middle aged trying to read small print on labels, It also gave somewhere for geeks like me to make notes!

I liked the arrangement of the rooms by themes which were also vaguely chronological and I also liked the fact that it looked at his influence in his own life time not just after he died. It was also a change to see some interesting less well known pictures and the curator had tried to get pictures from British collections wherever possible to also show the influence of this genre in Britain.

Of the non-Caravaggio’s I liked a picture by Cecco de Caravaggio, the master’s servant and model, of a musician in the genre of young boy pictures, with a rather provocative whistle in his teeth. I was also interested to see a Baglione of St Francis with angels particularly as the court case brought against Baglione against Caravaggio was for the return of a pair of wings and a monk’s habit, was it the ones in this picture? I loved a Gentileschi picture of David and Goliath, David has a fabulous thigh!

Another Gentileschi of the Rest on the Flight to Egypt was a strange composition due to the background formed by the plaster work on the wall behind the family. It was an interesting comparison to the Caravaggio version in Rome. Great to see a painting I didn’t know of Susanna and the Elders by Gentileschi’s wonderful daughter Artemisia.

Of the Caravaggio’s themselves this was mainly the gallery’s own pictures but there were two really good loans. a wonderful John the Baptist from Kansas showing the saint as a brooding adolescent boy and possibly my favourite picture by the artist, the Taking of Christ from Dublin. I just love the way the light catches on the armour of the soldier which pulls together the composition of this emotional crowd.

Closes on 15 January 2016.

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