Early Italian Art 1250–1400: Little-Known Fresco Cycles from Pomposa to Trento


Excellent study day organised by the London Art History Society as the last in a series on early Italian art focusing on lesser-known fresco cycles.

Other study days in this summer series had looked at specific cities but this final session swept up other art which wasn’t in those three major centres. We also had a different lecturer for this session and Clare Ford-Wille took us on a lovely tour of Northern Italy and added lots of towns to add to my list of places I want to visit.

Most interesting was her tour of the abbey at Pomposa which I had not come across before. Various abbots had commissioned cycles to promote the church. Sadly none of the artists are known but there seems to have been a fashion for depictions of the Last Supper at circular tables.

We then looked at cycles in Padua which are overshadowed by the amazing work by Giotto which we had studied in the previous session. We started with the work of Giusto da Menabuoi in Baptistery commissioned by Fina Buzzacarina, the wife of the city’s ruler, who wanted to transform the space into a family mausoleum.  We then moved onto the Oratory of St Giorgio with scenes from the lives of St Lucy and St Catherine.

We ended by looking at two wonderful secular cycle from the Saluzzo and Trento. One had a wonderful wall devoted to the idea of a Fountain of Youth with wonderful old figures transforming into youthful ones with Heroes and Heroines on the opposite one. The heroines were like fashion plates. Another showed the labours of the months like a giant Book of Hours.

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 was
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