Giovanni Battista Moroni

Sumptuous and fascinating exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at the work of Giovanni Battista Moroni.

I knew of Moroni’s work from the National Gallery but is was great to see so much in one place and not just portraits but also altar pieces.

I was fascinated to see that he was actually in Trent around the time of the council which set the rules for counter-reformation art and how he incorporated these ideas, in particular how he represented new ideas in prayer recommended by Ignatius Loyola.

Of course the portraits are the heart of the show and I liked the way it broke them down into the early works for the great families of the Lombard region, the simpler works for the local bourgeois and clergy and later works which the show described as the beginnings of modern portraiture. I love this sort of show which is not only about the artists but becomes a picture of a society at a given moment in time. I liked the connections between the people.

It was good to include a room of his altar pieces and as many of these had been lent by churches and were not framed I liked the display of them in architectural frames within the walls of the gallery. This gave an atmospheric effect.

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