Art in dialogue: Duccio and Caro

Thoughtful display at the National Gallery showing Duccio’s Annunciation with the modern sculptor Caro’s Duccio Variation no 3.

Caro created this work when asked to respond to the picture by the gallery back in 1999 and this is the first time that this painting and sculpture have been seen together. In particular he responded to the architectural elements in the picture. The sculpture is made of wood so the same material that the picture is on. It acts a lot like a stage set and invites you to look at the space in the picture again and think of it as a 3 dimensional space.

While in the gallery my friend and I looked up the other variations made by Caro on our phones to see how they differed. It might have been nice if pictures of this works could have been part of the display as they made up a longer conversation with the picture.

As this was shown in the space usually used for the Della Francesca’s it was also interesting to see them in a new setting alongside other contemporary works and get a fresh perspective on them.

 

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