Cathy's Art Diary

Charming lecture at the National Gallery to complement the Leonardo exhibition looking at a pageant designed by him called Festa del Pardadiso in honour of a Sforza wedding. Sian Walters used a translation of a description of the event to talk about what it consisted of relating it to contemporary pictures. The first four hours of the pageant consisted of dancing so to investigate that Darren Royston from Nonsuch Dance used the dance group to illustrate the role of dancing at the time and what the dances might have looked like.

Stunning exhibition at the National Gallery focusing on the period in Leonardo da Vinci’s life when he worked at the Court of Milan. This is obviously the blockbuster exhibition of 2011-12 but it was well worth the trouble to get tickets and my visit to it at 8.30 in the evening. I had expected it might just be about the well known pictures but it was actually a very scholarly display. It was magical to see the two “Virgin of the Rocks” together. The person I visited with was disappointed that the pictures weren’t side by side however we soon realised if they had been it would have just shown up how dirty the Louvre on was! The “Lady with an Ermine” was entrancing. I loved the ‘new’ picture “Salvatora Mundi”. However best of all was the juxtaposition of drawings and paintings to give some idea of their development. The best example of this was the studies for the “Last Supper” displayed either side of the contemporary copy of it. It gave a sense that Leonardo had collected faces and ty...