Stories of art Module 1 : Sainsbury Wing 1260-1500

Fifth 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 role of religion as this was the main reason to produce art in the period, as devotional works for public and private spaces. He talked us through the iconography of a number of the pictures including the earliest picture in the National Gallery collection by Margarito d'Arezzo and the Crivelli Annunciation. He also looked at how new ideas which took hold in this period such as the Immaculate Conception were shown in art.

In the second half Pieta Schade, Head of a Framing Department, talked us through the aesthetic choices made by the gallery when framing a picture. He looked in particular at the reframing of the Virgin of the Rocks.

 

 

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