Cathy's Art Diary

Small exhibition at the Christchurch Gallery in Oxford which looked at the role of drawing in Spain and Naples in the 17th century. It discussed the connections between the 2 geographical areas where drawing is rare because it was not seen as essential to the growth of artistic ideas. There were many lovely works including Ribera’s St Irene which was the star of the show. I loved a picture by Preti of the Vision of St Anthony where he had offered the patron two versions of picture via stuck on flap on paper giving him a chance to choose his tabernacle.

Lecture at the National Gallery to accompany the current Gosseart exhibition . This lecture was given by Catherine Reynolds an independent scholar and put Gasseart into the context of Netherlandish art at the time. She claimed that would have had access to many earlier work including the Arnolfini Wedding as he worked as a picture restored for Margaret of Austria. Although he took on many new innovations from Italy he put these into the context of early Netherlandish work. She outlined how Gossaert adapted the style of earlier painters such as false frames in portraits.

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. Reviews Times Guardian Daily