Mantegna and Bellini: Painting the Renaissance


Excellent course at the National Gallery looking at the work of and relationship between Mantegna and Bellini.

This was led by Caroline Brooke over two afternoons and took the form of a series of lectures. She has a lovely dry style which I enjoy. She sets the work in the context of the time but also has a way of seeing things through modern eyes to share practical ideas.

In the first week she looked at the history of the two artists and how their family ties linked them but also why they might have been a reason for Mantegna to move to Mantua to find a market he didn’t have to share with his brother in law. She then looked at the importance of place in their work from the university city of Padua to Venice and Mantua. Finally we looked at their patrons and the difference between being an independent artist in a city and a court painter.

Week two led us to look what inspired both artists but also how they were innovative. This covered not only the classical tradition but also books being written at the time and the ongoing debate as to whether painting or sculpture was the higher art form. We then looked at their technique and how Mantegna carries on using egg tempura as a medium while Bellini moves to oil and what different that makes to the pictures. Finally we looked at their legacy including the fact that Titian trained in the Bellini workshop and how Durer picked up Mantegna’s ideas of print making to spread their work.

All in all two fascinating afternoons which shed a lot of light on the current exhibition and made me look at it afresh when I visited a second time.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thomas Becket: Murder and Making of a Saint

Image
Stunning exhibition at the British Museum on the life and afterlife of Thomas Becket. I studied Becket both at A Level and at university so I was really looking forward to this show and it did not disappoint. From walking in to see an old friend, the early Limoges casket showing the murder from the Victoria and Albert Museum, I was gripped. The show told the story well using fantastic objects and led you through his life, the murder, the political aftermath, his sainthood and miracles, and how Canterbury became a major pilgrimage site. It is hard to pick out the best objects as so many were wonderful. I loved that they had early copies of some of the five eyewitness accounts of the murder which made you fell you were almost touching the event. I liked the manuscript on his time in exile which was almost like a comic strip. How wonderful to get a 13th century font from Sweden which shows how far and how quickly the news that Henry II had integrated the murder spread. I think my...
Read more

Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year Exhibition 2019

Image
Delightful exhibition at Clarendon Fine Art showing pictures from the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year TV series. I had loved the series which had set nine artists, both professional and amateur, to paint one of three celebrities. It then had a semi-final and final with them all looking at one sitter and in the final they also took on a commission. I loved the way you watched a picture build and how some were then made or spoiled by one stroke of paint.   Finding these pictures I knew so well in the flesh was therefore fascinating. None of them disappointed. My favourite artist from the final, Tom Mead, works looked just as good in real life if not better as you could see the detail. The show included his impressive self-portrait which he submitted to enter the competition, a wonderful fragmented picture of his reflection in a mirror giving a sense of movement. I loved that it included a large version of him and a miniature. His commission for the final of Jazzie B...
Read more

The Renaissance Nude

Image
Beautiful exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at the nude in Renaissance art. The show was gently themed but mainly let the pictures speak for themselves. It began by looking at the subjects, both religious and secular, which include nude figures then examined techniques and models used in these works, finishing by looking at more personal pictures. This is a period I’ve studied a lot so there were a lot of old friends and it was quite fun predicting what might appear. There were a few surprises too such as the rather surprising drawing of the Ecstatic Christ. I liked the fact the show included lots of different art forms not just paintings including sculpture, etchings, drawings and illuminated manuscripts. There were some fascinating hangs to draw comparisons particularly two sets of pictures by Giovanni Bellini and Hand Memling from almost exactly the same date. These were shown back to back in a display cabinet down the middle of one room. My favourite work was ...
Read more