Cathy's Art Diary

Interesting online lecture from ARTscapades on the 17th century artist Adam Elsheimer. I’d not come across this artist before so was intrigued to be introduced to him by artist and writer, Julian Bell, in this talk based in his new book on the artist. I seem to be drawn to this century at the moment so it was useful to add Elsheimer to my knowledge bank. Bell focused on Elsheimer’s “Flight into Egypt” of 1609 to highlight his style and tell his story. He explained how Elsheimer’s works when he arrived in Rome were small pieces painted on copper. Sadly, partly because he seemed to have worked slowly, he ended up in debtors’ prison and died aged 32. Bell placed us into the world of Northern artists in Rome at this period and described how Elsheimer and Rubens became friends. He also looked at how the art world had been shaken by the works of Caravaggio and a moving away from the elegance of Raphael. He talked us through the expensive sky in this work and how that might relate to...

Charming installation at Museo Archaeologico Nationale de Napoli of works by Manoli Valdès. The works were life sized sculptures based on the Spanish Infanta in Las Meninas by Velazquez. Picasso was also influenced by the painting and did a series of works riffing on it so this complimented another exhibition about him in the museum. They looked beautiful in the space but would have had more effect if there had been less information boards in the impressive space, the Meridian Hall, to detract from them. I loved this quote in the explanation “Does Valdés cite these "old masters" as a reference or a memo, or does he regard them as a battlefield for his own pictorial exploration?”. What an interesting idea! Again there is nothing on the museum’s website about this show despite lots of advertising of it within the building. Closes 6 January 2024    

Confusing exhibition at the Museo Archaeologico Nationale de Napoli of photographs by Giancatlo De Luca. I say confusing as the information boards were only in Italian, which I don’t speak or read. I can’t find anything about it on their website either. The haunting works were of the derelict II Real Albergo dei Poveri, a former hospital, which the museum plans to open as an extension for the collection and were shown in one of the galleries of Roman statues from the Farnese Collection. The works were beautifully atmospheric and it would have been good to know more about them and the project. I love the museum so I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for developments. Closes 11 December 2023    

Intriguing exhibition at the Museo Archaeologico Nationale de Napoli looking at how Picasso was influenced by classical art. Picasso made two trips to Naples in 1917 and was Influenced by his trips to this museum and in particular the Farnese Hercules and Bull as well as frescos from Pompeii.   The exhibition was in the room where the two sculptures are based and cleverly wove the narrative around them. The main works by Picasso used to illustrate the influence was the Vollard Suite of prints from the 1930s and I was interested to see that they used the set from the British Museum. It was a nice touch to include a display on what the museum would have looked like in 1917. Closed 2 October 2023  

Fascinating exhibition at Galleria d’Italia in Naples on the 20th century artist Mario Schifano. Schifano roughly fitted into the Pop Art movement starting with Rothko like pieces he called Monchromes then moving on to how his was influenced by street signs and street sign painters and I loved this picture of a work in progress. The show then looked at his time in New York where he often picked on small details around him especially in Central Park and my favourite picture was this deconstructed tree. There was also a section on how he was influenced by the rise of tv.   On the lower floor were his later large works which looked great in the rather brutalist space. Closed 29 October 2023    

Useful online lecture from the Victoria and albert Museum introducing their new exhibition on Gabrielle Chanel. The three curators of the show, Oriole Cullen, Stephanie Wood and Connie Burks led us though the structure of the exhibition.   They explained how they wanted to focus on Chanel’s design work and to just take a light touch to her life story. They discussed some of the choices they made in choosing the pieces to show and explained how they covered periods, such as the Second World War for which there were no exhibits using archive material. They used some beautiful pictures to illustrate the talk and I can’t wait to go and see the show. It’s on my list for next week.

Disappointing exhibition at the Imperial War Museum on the troubles in Northern Ireland from the late 1960s till the Peace Agreement of 1998. I had been looking forward to the show having watched a brilliant five part documentary on BBC recently and having of, of course, remembered the subject dominating the news bulletins of my childhood and teenage years. The display felt quite thin. I liked the fact it had interesting written testimony from those involved on all sides but it made for a lot of standing and reading or listening. There were impressive photographs on light boxes but few artefacts. The show concentrated on the ideologies and conflicting views of events but there was little information on what actually happened, the role of the British Army or how incidents spilled out into mainland Britain. They did well with the three small rooms allocated to the show but the subject deserves much better coverage. Just go back and watch the documentary, it gave me a much better o...