Cathy's Art Diary

An interesting study morning at the National Gallery looking at their Ruben’s of Samson and Delilah in detail. The morning was led by Lucrezia Walker from the gallery and she began by looking at where Ruben’s was in this point of his career. We talked about how he worked at court as a boy and must had observed life there, how he worked in Spain for Philip III and at works he did on his return to Antwerp.   We then looked at who commissioned and owned the picture and where is hang. In the next section we looked in detail at the picture and talked about the story it tells, including a dramatic reading of it from the Bible by the tutor. We talked about the symbolism and whether this reflects loyalty to the state. Finally we spent some time in front of the picture discussing its’s composition and which bits we felt worked and didn’t work.  

Lovely exhibition at the National Gallery focusing on the altarpiece by Botticini which was commissioned by Matteo Palmieri for San Pier Maggoire in Florence. The show looked at the church, the picture, the artist and the commissioner. There was a lovely video looking at how the research team went to Florence to discover what was left of the church which no longer exists and found bits of it still extant in people’s kitchens! It looked closely at Palmieri both at his work as an apothecary and his writings on civic humanism. It discussed the iconography of the picture and hung it with the wonderful multi-panelled gold altarpiece by Jacopo di Cione from the Sainsbury Wing which had hung in the same church. Finally it looked at the artist whose father had been a painter of playing cards and compares his to his Florentine contemporaries Verrocchio and Botticelli. The show gives a super overview of life in Florence in a very particular period. Closes on 16 February. ...

Fabulous morning at the National Gallery looking at fashion in the 18th century and how it reflected national identity. The morning was in the form of two lectures by Aileen Ribeiro, Emeritus professor at the Courtauld, one looking at France and England and the other at Spain. The event was in connection with the current Goya portraits exhibition. To sum up French fashion was more frivolous and flouncy until the Revolution when things became simplified. English fashion tended to reflect rural life with riding habits and good tailoring being fashionable. Spain had followed the fashion of other countries in this period but also developed a style based on the regional dress of the majos and majas of May Day celebrations. Both lectures were illustrated with wonderful pictures both of portraits but also of clothing in museums.

Confusing exhibition at the British Museum looking at the medals of Louise XIV, described as the greatest medallic project ever. I say confusing as it took me quite a while to work out what the project was. I do wonder if I went round backwards but there was no signage to say where to start! By the end I worked out that there was a deliberate move to commemorate all events in the kings reign with a medal with a committee called the Little Academy set up to oversee this. In 1702 all the medals were published in a book. I sometimes found it had to tell what had been in this canon as there also seemed to be displays on anti-monarch medals which I assume weren’t official. The show just needed a bit more narrative as I must admit I came out of the small room wondering why this was important and with no sense of the design or purpose of the objects. Closed   15 November2015. Review Telegraph

Fascinating exhibition at the British Museum charting the transformation in Egypt after the last pharaoh from a religion of many gods to the monotheistic religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Covering 12000 years from 30BC and the coming of the Roman Empire to 1171 AD when Saladin took power. Despite the main focus of the exhibition being big theological ideas the show managed to have a very personal feel and to reflect how these changes affected people’s lives. I’m not sure what the link to religion was but who could resist the tiny child’s striped sock! There was a lot about how the later religions reused Egyptian temples and how they adapted the imagery. I was fascinated by the section on the family unit of Serapis, Isis and Harpokrates which showed how some of their imagery was reused sometimes as a trilogy image but also as a strong mother and child image. I loved all the documents which had been found in one city with boggy earth and in the synagogue in ...

Strange little exhibition at the Museum of London of photographs by Rut Blees commenting on the development of London and the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis. It looked at the pressure to maximise space before the crisis and the lift shafts left unfished afterwards like “economic tombstones”. It did this through photographing construction hoardings contrasting the wonderful computer generated versions of what the building will be with the reality of a building site. These were really interesting pictures but there just weren’t enough of them to tell the story well. I think there were about six large pictures which were nice but not enough to help you see the theme and draw conclusions for yourself. Closes on 10 January 2016.

Ghoulish but fascinating exhibition at the Museum of London featuring items from the Metropolitan Police’s Crime Museum sometimes called the Black Museum. The first section on the 19th century was set up like the original museum with a wonderful hotchpotch of exhibits from death masks of criminals hung at Newgate, through court room sketches and the old visitors’ book of the museum. I found the room of execution ropes rather difficult as I am against capital punishment and I found the fact that there was a record of who these ropes had killed quite eerie. The main section was arranged with the stories of 24 cases from 1905 to 1975 along one side of the display and cases on types of crime and detective methods down the other side. The cases side was fascinating but a bit cramped. It told the story of the crime and they had a small display case of objects from it. Again it was eerie looking at murder weapons. I was particularly taken by the case local to where I live of Nell...

Lovely exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland looking at modern designer silverware. The work comes from the Goldsmith’s Company collection. The company commissions and purchases new work for its collection and has added 150 items since 2000. There were a number of works by Hiroshi Suzuki who does beautiful designs with fluted sides. Also a number of pairs of candelabra from very classic designs by Frances Loyen or more contemporary ones by Alex Brogden. There were a number of exquisite beakers including some with plique a jour enamel and one by Jane Short covering in enamel fish scales. My favourite piece was wonderful centrepiece called “Spiritus” by Teresa Nguguyen which consisted of fine leaves in a spiral shape.

Fabulous exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland looking at the invention of photography and how quickly it took off in the Victorian era. The show was based on the galleries own collection as well as that of Bernard Howarth-Loomes which has been on loan to the gallery since 2003. It began by looking at the rival developer of photography Fox Talbot and Daguere and paralleled their experiments and early use of their techniques and included the first book of photographs ever published in 1844 by Talbot. The show was beautifully designed with pictures shown in mock ups of old cameras and later on in faux shop windows. There was a lot of pictures but the show managed to strike a good balance between telling the story and the detail. It looked at the development of the professional studios and the fashion for having you photograph. This moved on to talk about the Carte de viste, a smaller format that was developed and which were not only taken for private use but als...

Interesting exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery at Holyrood House looking at the relationship between the royal family and Scottish artists in the 18th and 19th centuries. The show gave a good overview of the taste of British monarchs and the development of Scottish art. It began with George III and the support he gave to Allan Ramsey who painting the main royal portraits of which hundreds of copies were made. Ramsey was the first Scottish artist of European significance. It then looked at David Wilkie and in particular two pictures purchased by the Prince Regent but it also looked at his work after he had visited Spain when he started using brighter colours and covered subjects from the peninsular war. There was also a lovely picture by him of Queen Victoria, probably the earliest picture of her as the reigning monarch. There was a large section on Queen Victoria and her taste for all things Scottish including portraits of the staff at Balmoral by Kenneth MacLeay. It a...

Surprising exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery by the photographic group Document Scotland examining Scottish identity following the referendum. It consisted of four sets of pictures, one by each of the group looking at different aspects of Scottish life and history. I will admit I did go expecting it to be a bit dull and worthy but it was really interesting and highlighted different aspects of Scottish life. Stephen McLaren looked at the legacy of the slave trade in Scotland contrasting where the men who made the money came from and where it was made. This included a nice set off portraits of people in the West Indies with Scottish surnames which had probably derived from their ancestors being the property of plantations owned by Scots men. Colin McPherson looked at the rituals of football and particularly at the lower league Scottish clubs. These were poignant pictures of empty dilapidated terraces and devoted men. The names of the grounds were the ...

Disappointing exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery looking at the First World War in Scotland. I just say disappointing as even I may have over dosed on the First World War. I felt this couldn’t decide if it was a portrait exhibition or a general art exhibition. It was mainly portraits but it then threw in “Avatar” by Henry Lintott an allegorical work on the war and the modern photos of the Somme by Peter Catterall, which I love, but which aren’t portraits. If it was aiming to be a more general artistic look at the war it needed more general pictures and less of the slightly obscure portraits. There were however some interesting stories which I didn’t know for example there was a portrait of Alexander Fleming as the development of penicillin was based on his observations of wound in the First World War. I loved the fact here was a cartoon for one of the friezes of the Scottish War Memorial at the castle which I love. The full sized drawing was by Morris Mer...

Beautiful exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery looking at sculpted heads and figures from ancient times to now. I say beautiful because of the lay out. It was displayed in a dark rather contained space with the pieces shown at different heights and viewable from all sides. It mixed genres and materials so that you looked at each object as an individual item not as part of a group. There was even one figure handing from the ceiling and a few interesting twists and turns which meant objects were revealed as you walked round. There was also a clever use of reflections off the darkened windows. A stunning display! There is of course a however, it was a bit over themed. There were four portrait?, material, the function and breaking out. This did give some narrative to the work but it was sometimes a bit confusing as to which category you were looking at but frankly on the whole it didn’t matter. I know I like a narrative to take me round a show but in this case,...

Thought provoking exhibition in St Andrew Square, Edinburgh of photos by    Nick Hedges commissioned by Shelter in the 1960s and 70s. Displayed on large boards in this open air space and concentrating on pictures from Scotland these were moving pictures of housing conditions inevitably leading you to question how much things had changed. The quote from Hedge said that he believed people's opportunities were restricted by their circumstances. The pictures were warm and not patronising and had been used in articles, advert and reports in this era. I thought the most moving one was of a woman in a Glasgow tenement in 1971 who had been left in the building while others had been rehoused but she was still on the waiting list. One morning she was woken up by the wrecking balls knocking down the building as she had in fact been forgotten.   Closed on 31 October 2015.

Nice exhibition at the National Gallery of Scotland to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir David Young Cameron who is best known as a print maker and was part of the etchings revival of the late 19th century. I loved his very detailed pictures of architecture such as one of the Five Sisters’ Window in York Minster which gave a wonderful sense of the shape and effect of the window. Similarly I liked one of Winchester Cathedral with great arches of light formed by the dark architectures around them. The commentary said he was a deeply religious man who believed that beauty and decoration were essential to worship. I was interested to see how he’d be influenced by Rembrandt, having visited the Rembrandt House recently, and that he had given 56 Rembrandt prints to the gallery which he had collected. He sat on the Board of Trustees of the gallery and there was a lovely print of the building itself by him in a cabinet in the middle of the room. In fact he had been beh...

Small exhibition at the National Gallery of Scotland of 19th century landscapes from this private collection which are on long term loan to the gallery focusing on Norwegian and Swiss artists. These were rather lovely small pictures of dramatic views with interesting commentaries which pointed out the links between the artists. I loved Thomas Fearnley’s “Fishing at Derwent Water” with a dramatic linear composition of rocks in the foreground, a row of reeds, the water then mountains in the background and with a fisherman at the centre. Also a wonderful study of rocks by Alexander Calamer where the rocks and the water running over them were the same colour but he managed to give a sense of the different feel and texture. Closes on 20 January 2016.

Interesting exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery bringing together new children’s book illustrators with established artists in the field for a year’s mentoring. The show hung examples of the work that the new illustrator had done during the year and work by their mentors plus interviews about what they had both got out of the relationship.   I loved the work of new comer Hannah Coulson who had done pictures to illustrate Italian folk tales including a lovely picture of a geese herder with the geese as silhouettes against the girl’s long coat. I also loved a picture by her mentors Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom for a book on the Beatles. I liked Catherine Lindlow’s pictures for a book on a child and their relationship with food. Who could resist “The Joy of Spaghetti Hoops” for the title alone! Also some stunning pictures by Tracey Smith of collage style pictures of houses against a dark background but I couldn’t work out what project they were for. Close...

Colourful exhibition at the National Gallery of Scotland looking at the life and work of Arthur Melville. This was a chronologically arranged show with lovely pictures from throughout Melville’s career. The early section looked at his two years in Paris and his influences. I loved his picture from the Royal Academy “A Cabbage Garden”, a study in the colour in cabbages in a rather Millet like picture. From there it looked at his travels in the Middle East. It explained his reputation as an adventurer came from this time when he was attached by bandits. He did wonderful open air watercolours into this period which he developed into scenes into narrative pictures. I preferred the freer early versions as sometime the stories in the finished versions seemed a bit kitsch. He had a really good eye for composing and cropping an image. There was a nice section on his work in the Orkneys including a lovely picture of a dark Orkney cathedral pulled together by the white splash o...

Excellent workshop at the National Gallery looking at the influence of circus and music hall on art in the later 19th and early 20th centuries. The morning focused on France and the circus taking Degas’s “Miss La, La and the Cirque Fernando” as a starting point. Jo Rhymer from the gallery talked about the picture and why it was so ground breaking. She also talked about the Cirque Fernando and its influence on other artists then introduced us to Miss La, La herself. In a second talk she looked at how Toulouse-Lautrec had also depicted this circus. Cultural historian, Fern Riddell, then talked about other aerial acts and the phenomena of these performances both in France and England. She also talked about the strong position held by these female performers in society as they outstripped male performers in salary and this gave them independence. In the afternoon we focused more on the British music hall with the novelist Essie Fox talking about her novel the Somnambulant...

Brilliant installation at Tate Modern by Abraham Cruzvillegas in the Turbine Hall. This is a large raised diamond shaped platform with small diamond shaped raised beds filled with earth from around London. The idea is to keep the earth warm and watered and see what grows from it without adding seeds although people can drop seeds into the boxes nearest the walkway. The commentary says it is based on Mexican growing grids called Chinampas and the shape has been devised in response to the shape of the hall. The artist says the work is about feelings of hope and expectation. The work does fill the space beautifully and it is strangely mesmerising to just look down into the boxes and to look at what has grown already and what might be there to grow in the future. I look forward to revisiting often in the next six months to see things develop. Closes 3 April 2016. Reviews Guardian Telegraph Independent Evening Standard  

Interesting small exhibition at the National Gallery examining the gallery’s own portrait of Dona Isabel de Porcel by discussing if it is in fact by Goya as a companion show to Goya : The Portraits. The show discusses the historical and technical evidence. It traces the sale record of it and talks about the fact it was not sold by the family of the sitter and can’t be traced to that family. It also looks at x-ray evidence which shows another picture underneath it and shows that the picture we see was painted directly on this other image without the application of a new ground or primer. However despite all the evidence the show doesn’t draw any conclusions which is a shame but it is an interesting study in research techniques.

Fantastic exhibition at the National Gallery looking at the portrait work of Goya. I found this show really engaging as it managed to tell a number of stories in a very clear way as well as displaying the pictures beautifully. It shows the growth of Goya as a portrait painter. The first works are lovely but seem rather quaint and naïve although he is already alluding to the great court portrait painter of a different generation, Velazquez. By the later works the pictures show a great insight into people’s characters. It also showed the stories of a group of people with figures reappearing in different rooms at different ages. I loved the fact the little boy with long blond hair in an early work reappears as a cleric. The audio tour and leaflet adds nice touches of the sitter’s stories and gives a real sense of a generation of people. There was also a great sense of friendship in the works. A number of the sitters were people Goya worked with or knew well and often the...

Interesting lecture at the National Gallery given by Richard Stemp as an introduction to the current Goya portraits exhibition. Richard went thought he exhibition room by room describing some of the main pictures and telling the stories behind them. He used that format to also tell the story of Goya’s life. He gave good insights into the works although having now gone round the show a lot could also be found on the audio tour. I did find it useful that he pointed out that a number of children in the earlier works reappear later on in the show. Also useful to realise there is a progression through the work as when you start the exhibition the work does seem a little naive but you do seem them grow.  

Interesting exhibition at the Van Goh Museum in Amsterdam comparing the art of Munch and Van Gogh which shared many stylist themes although they never met. Both artists were inspired by similar artists who had painted traditional themes and both their first famous works, The Potato Eaters for Van Gogh and Morning for Munch drew on this tradition. They were both in Paris at about the same time and it was interesting to see how they each drew on what was happening around them and to see other works that were contemporary to their time there such as a beautiful scene from a balcony by Caillebotte. Both had also worked on the idea of pictures forming a decorative programme, Van Gogh with his pictures for the Yellow House and Munch’s Frieze of Life, and the top floor had AV displays which recreated these and you realised how many of the pictures from them you had seen in the show. There were some interesting hangings of similar pictures together to gently let your eye draw...

Fabulous exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam looking at the import of luxury goods from the Asia into the Netherlands during the Dutch Golden Age and their impact. This was a visually stunning show with wonderful objects beautifully displayed. There were galleries themed round different trading countries but also on different goods such as porcelain, lacquer work and clothes. There were also sections on how the art of the Netherlands was influenced by the goods which came in such as the classic still lives also called pronks. It is hard to pick out particular objects as they were all so interesting but seeing a piece of imported porcelain with a coat of arms on shown next to a still life with another piece from the same set with the same coat of arms was pretty stunning. I knew very little about the Dutch East India Company (VOC) so the section on its power centre Batvia was really interesting. It emphasised that a lot of the trade was within the VOC itself an...

Thought provoking exhibition at the Old Church, Amsterdam for this international competition for photos about sexual and gender diversity. The pictures seemed to be mainly in sets although there was also an award for a single work. Apologies I didn’t manage to take great notes for this one and it’s a while ago since I saw it but I do remember a series called “Days of Melancholy” by Tatiana Vinogradova about the loves of gay people in Russia. Also pictures of trans gender people by Jean-Francois Bouchard. My favourite though was a picture by Marika Puicher of a little girl with a peacock feather over the eye. She was a girl called Ella who had been born a boy but she identifies as a girl. Her story adds to the interest in and complexity of the photo but whatever the story it was a beautiful picture.    Sorry this exhibition closed on 25 October.

Interesting exhibition at the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam looking at Netherlandish prints from over two centuries pulled from three private collections. There were some lovely works in this show but I am not sure I got much sense of progression of style or technique.   I loved Dirck Vellert’s “Vision of St Bernard of Clairvaux” with great classical architecture in the background. Also De Passe’s pictures of the five senses. I was interested in prints which had been made to popularise other art works such as a wonderful picture of a fleet of galleys after a picture by Bruegel the Elder. I was taken by four mannerist roundels by Goltzius who I’ve just realised was the artist who I fell for in the British Museum silverpoint exhibition who did the picture of his pet dog! I just love the connections you make in this art stuff! Closes on 24 January 2016.

Disappointing exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum examining portraiture in contemporary art. I say disappointing as I love portraits and looked forward to this show hoping for a good overview of where portraiture stood in art at the moment, what are the themes and who is involved. Instead this was a small show, just two rooms and just addressed the idea of how contemporary work adapts traditional or historic modes and others adapt the idea of official photographs. There were interesting works and I particularly liked Tom Hunter’s Vermeer like photographs of homeless people including “Woman reading a possession order”. I also liked Bettina von Zwehl’s pictures from when she was artist in residence at the museum when she took 34 pictures of one of the assistants, Sophia Birikorang in the same location over time in the style of a miniature. The show seemed to pick on good, known contemporary artists and look at what portraiture they’d done rather than giving an ...