Stories of art Module 1 : Sainsbury Wing 1260-1500

Third session in a six week course at the National Gallery on the period covered by the Sainsbury Wing roughly 1260 to 1500.

This week the course leader Richard Stemp looked at the importance, particularly for works from this period, to realise that they were not made to hang in the sort of gallery setting we see them in now. We had to think about the space they were made for and what else might have hung with them. He have the wonderful example of the gallery’s Duccio Annunciation in which the virgin seems to point oddly over her shoulder. It is only when you see the praedella it came from that you realise she is pointing at the prophet who foretold the event.

The second half was Alan Crookham, Research Centre Manager of the National Gallery, who looked at the Sainsbury Wing itself, how it was commissioned and how the design was reached. He had wonderful items from the archive with him such as the notes made by the architects and gallery staff on a fact finding trip they took round Italy looking at galleries and original locations for the art.

 

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