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Showing posts from January, 2021

Good and Bad Government: The Lorenzetti Brothers in Siena

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Excellent online lecture from ArtScapades on the Allegory of Good and Bad Government fresco in Siena. This is one of my favourite frescos and rooms so I was delighted to spend time listening to Richard Stemp explain the iconography of this secular work by Ambrogio Lorenzetti from 1338. I think last time I was in Siena I spent nearly two hours just sitting and looking at all the wonderful details. I had recently done a three week course with Richard on the Arena Chapel in Padua by Giotto and he drew parallels in this work with the figures of the virtues and vices there. I particularly enjoyed his detailed walk thought the Allegory of Good Government which leads for a figure of Wisdom, though images of Justice and Concord to the Common Good. He explained the iconography in this work of the different virtues and matched it later with that of the vices in Bad Government. I hadn’t realised before that the images of the city and countryside on the side walls match the geography of the

Leon Battista Alberti: Beyond Architecture

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Fascinating two day online course from the London Art History Society on Leon Battista Alberti, the Renaissance architects and polymath. On day one Andrew Spira put Alberti in the context of 15th century humanism and gave us an excellent outline of the main protagonists prior to Alberti. He then looked at Alberti’s theories on art, in particular linear perspective, and outlined why these changes in how space could be defined were important. I’d never considered before that it allowed technical ideas to be shared more easily via more detailed, realistic diagrams. There was a good outline of the main artists who were early adopters of the ideas. Day 2 concentrated on Alberti’s architectural writings and projects. Spira outlined the principles in Vitruvius and how some architects and theorists had tried to apply these before Alberti. I was interested to see some early versions of the Vitruvian man which didn’t quite work. He also talked about how Alberti’s ideas spread and become mor

Art and Stuff

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Fun new weekly podcast from the Art Fund each episode focusing on specific objects from different museums and galleries purchased with the help of the fund. Introduced by Ben Miller, the series so far, and at the time of writing we are on episode 6, have covered an eclectic collection of items from collaged screen by Joe Orton’s partner Kenneth Halliwell, through an 18th century organ, taking in the picture of the Spanish Armada shown here and a portrait of Charles Dickens. Each episode brings together a variety of experts and artists to comment on the piece and discuss themes that arise from it. For example an episode on the Great Bed of Ware looks a the history of sleep, travel and marketing as well as describing the object and it’s place in cultural history. My only criticism of this well produced series would be that it would be nice to have a webpage of images for each one so you can see the object in more detail and some of the other pieces mentioned particularly any conte

Look at the Revival: Gossaert’s Adoration of the Kings

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Touching online talk from the National Gallery with a reading of a new poem inspired by Gosseart’s Adoration of the Kings. The National Gallery currently has an immersive exhibition of this painting if only we could get to it. It sounds wonderful with booths in which you can look at very high resolution images of the work and animated sections of it as well as seeing the picture itself. They also commissioned a poem from an x-Young Poet Laureate for London, Teresa Lola. This event consisted of Clara Davarpanagh talking about the painting which is one of my favourites. She talked us through some of the detail of the work and also about the evolution of Balthazar appearing as a black king in images. Although he was described as black in early Christian writing he does not appear as such in images until the late 14th century. There is some idea that this post-dates the Council of Florence in the 1440s where there was a delegation from Ethiopia. This was followed by Teresa touchingly

Concealed Histories: Uncovering the Story of Nazi Looting

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Fascinating online talk from the Victoria and Albert Museum on work they are doing to research the provenance of items in their collections. Jacques Schuhmacher, provenance curator for the Gilbert Collection at the museum, talked us through a brief history of the confiscation and forced sale of Jewish property by the Nazi’s from 1933 when they came to power. He told us how even up to 1998 the Victoria and Albert Museum, like many others, kept sparse provenance records for items in their collections just recording who gave the item or who it was bought from and the names of any famous owners. He then talked about research he had down on items in the Gilbert Collection and told us some of the stories of the objects. For example the Louis XVI gold box shown here was owned by Maximilian von Goldschmidt-Rothschild, a Jewish banker, who had had to submit a catalogue of his collection for the Nazi’s which they then used as a blue print for what they wished to take. In 1938 he was forced

Deeper Thoughts: Beyond the Allegory of Bellini, Giorgione and Titian

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Fascinating online lecture from the National Gallery discussing the parallels between the work of late Bellini, Giorgione and early Titian and contemporary poetry. Delivered by Salvator Settis, Archaeologist and art historian, this was the annual Linbury Lecture for 2020. He eloquently took us through some of the most famous images, mainly Giorgione’s explaining where they might be based on poetry of the time, and if not specific works, on the literary principles in the poems. He talked about how the work was probably driven by a group of patrons who were interested in rhetoric and the idea that part of the pleasure of art was the discussion of the possible hidden meanings in it. Although they drove the demand it was a way of painting which stared to elevate the status and imaginative role of the artists in the work as the market moved from very specific religious commissions to more nuanced, artistically drive compositions. He finished by linking the talk to the current exhibit

Moonlight and Mortality: The Enigmatic Works of Joseph Wright of Derby

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Interesting online lecture by Stella Grace Lyons looking at the life and work of Joseph Wright of Derby. Lyons told the story of Wrights work through a series of his best known works. Seen as an artist of the Enlightenment, Wright was fascinated by the contrast of light and dark and was best known for his candlelit pictures of contemporary scientific and industrial scenes, most famous of which is the National Gallery’s “Experiment on an Bird in an Air Pump” which I love. She introduced me to works I didn’t know such as “The Alchymist” from 1771 which shows an alchemist’s discovery of phosphorus. He sinks to his knees before the experiment in wonder as the moon, a reference to the Lunar Society, shines thought the window. Other examples she used included the beautiful “Iron Forge”, a scene partly celebrating the liberation from hard physical labour and prosperity brought by the introduction of machinery to an iron foundry, and “A Philosopher Giving a Lecture at an Orrery” which i

Small Panels, Great Stories: Hidden Treasurers of Renaissance Altarpieces

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Fun online talk from the National Gallery looking at predella panels in the gallery from three altarpieces. Marc Woodhead and Carlo Corsato did an excellent double act talking us through what a predella was, the base of an altarpiece which was usually decorated with small scenes to illuminate lives of the saints or stories told in the main section of the work. They started by looking at Carlo Crivelli’s Madonna of the Swallow from 1490-92. The National Gallery has the whole altarpiece, including it’s frame, so it was a good way to show us how the predella worked. They took us through two panels in particular, the St George and the St Jerome, to show us how they told a whole story in a small picture. They even told us a story about St Jerome’s lion and a donkey that I’d never heard before! They then moved on to two pictures where the gallery only has panel from the predella and not the full work using them to show how altarpieces have been broken up over the years. They looked at

Berthe Morisot: “A Splendid Female Talent”

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Interesting online lecture from the National Gallery on the life and work of the female Impressionist, Berthe Morisot. Belle Smith took us through the story of Morisot’s life illustrating it with her paintings. She told us how Edward Manet became her friend and how she married his brother Eugene. We went through the artists who helped her and mentored her and the early influence on her work. I would like to have heard a bit more about Morisot’s later life and career and who bought her work. The talk concentrated on more on how she started as an artist and became established but I guess time was quite limited.

The Great Library at Nineveh

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Enthusiastic online lecture from the British Museum on the cuneiform tablets discovered at Nineveh, the remains of Ashurbanipal’s Great Library. Irving Finkel talked us through some of the most important tablets including the one shown here which is a non-biblical version of the story of the Great Flood. He explained how the emperor commissioned copies of documents which were produced by the scribes in the library as well as demanding originals from other libraries around the empire. He talked about how the tablets are displayed at the British Museum and how they were used in the wonderful Assyria exhibition and showed us relief sculptures which showed scribes in the field recording details of a battle. It was a bonus to find the event was chaired by Edmund de Waal to mark his installation at the museum “Library of Exile”. 

The Portinari Triptych by Hugo van der Goes

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Fabulous online presentation from the Uffizi Gallery looking at the Portinari Triptych. This is one of a series of tours they call Hypervisions consisting of excellent high-res photographs of details of the works which can be enlarged and explored, alongside interesting text in this case looking at the history of the picture and the symbolism of the jewellery and clothing. Others in the series include Wright of Derby’s “An Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump”, currently on loan from the National Gallery and the life of St Francis as seen through pictures in the Uffizi Gallery. I have a lot more exploring to do! I am fond of this picture and remember being captivated at seeming such an amazing piece of Flemish hyperrealism amongst the great Italian Renaissance works. I love the detailed portraits of the donor figures and the luscious details in the clothing and jewellery. It was therefore even more interesting to be taken through the symbolism of these items. I learned lots of ne