Cathy's Art Diary

Intriguing online talk from The Art Newspaper looking at whether the art market can be manipulated by gaming type behaviour. Anna Brady, Anny Shaw and Georgina Adam from the journal discussed whether manipulation of the art market could occur in the same way that buyers influenced the stock price of Gamestop recently. Adam carefully laid out how the art market was different and this probably wouldn’t happen but they went on to discuss ways people do try to manipulate the market. They discussed some interesting recent cases such as the Zombie Formalists which gave me lots to look up and learn more about. They then talked about Non Fundable Tokens (NFTs) in light of the recent sale of a digital only art work by Christie’s Beeple’s “Everydays: The first 5,000 days”, the first work of this type to be sold by an auction house. The discussed the possible benefits to the market of applying NFTs to physical works as well as digital only ones. They ended by looking at how art fairs had c...

Fascinating online lecture from the National Gallery using a 15th century birth tray from their collection to discuss birth, love and marriage in the period.   Kate Devine and Marc Woodhead explained what a birth tray or Desco da Parto was ie a decorative tray used to carry food for a woman giving birth or lying in which were also used as decoration for the home. There often had pictures of mythical scenes to do with love, birth or marriage on one side and of babies or coats of arms on the reverse.   They then looked in detail at an example from the National Gallery’s collection by the workshop of Apollinio de Giovanni and Marco del Buono called The Triumph of Love from 1455-6. They explained how it was based on a poem by Petrarch and looked at how it both mirrored the story and differed from it.   In particular they discussed the two figures of black African riders which are caricatures which may represent universality or just reflect the make up of a court at the ...

Interesting online lecture from Birkbeck looking at the role of slavery in 12th century France and Spain with particular reference to two sculptures on doorways north of the Pyrenees. Rose Walker carefully led us through various documents for the period mentioning slaves or captives then introduced us to the concept of Atlas figures from this period. She then focused on two beautiful examples from the central columns of portals to churches as Oloron-Saint.Marie and Morlaas. I found the Oloron figures, shown here, particularly fascinating for their detail and the fact they wear different clothes, one’s robe is edged in pearls and the other is embroidered. They are bound with an intricate realistic chain. They appear to be wealthy figures but are captives. Is this a literal depiction or a symbolic one? I must admit I then didn’t quite understand how Walker reached her conclusion to speculate whether these figures in fact represented the stone mason’s themselves and to wonder if ar...

Innovative online lecture from the National Gallery looking at how artists have embraced science and how they have depicted it. Nick Pace took us on an interesting journey through the scientific endeavours of Leonardo Da Vinci and Durer from their studies and prints of drawing devises through their anatomical and botanical works and Leonardo’s geological studies. He then turned to the Enlightenment and in particular Joseph Wright of Derby to look at how artists of that time depicted new scientific developments. It is always good to revisit Wright of Derby’s work and it was nice to discover a new work by Jacques Louis David of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier and Marie Anne Lavoisier from The Met showing the couple with their scientific equipment.

Interesting online talk from the Wallace Collection discussing the relationship between the work of Velazquez and his main pupil Juan Bautista Mazo. The speakers, Natalia Muñoz-Rojas, The Wallace Collection and Patricia Manzano Rodríguez, Zurbarán Centre for Spanish and Latin American Art, Durham University, in conversation discussed what we know of Mazo’s life and art. I hadn’t thought I knew any Mazo works but realised during the talk that I did, I just hadn’t realised it, for example the National Gallery have portraits of Mariana of Spain and Don Adrian Pulido Pareja. They talked about Mazo’s role as a copyist, which we now tend to look down on, but he was prized at the time for his copies of Velazquez’s great portraits of the Spanish royal family which everyone wanted to own. He also copied the great masters from the royal collection as noble families wanted to have their own versions. I will certainly pay more attention to 17th century Spanish works in galleries and not dis...

Detailed and fascinating talk from the Courtauld Research Forum on how Isabella of France both used and had artistic propaganda used against her following her invasion of England in 1326. Laura Slater of the University of Cambridge, talked us thorough a rough history of Isabella, wife of Edward II, who deposed Edward in favour of his son due to his father’s reliance on favourites, firstly Piers Gaveston and later the Despensers. Both sides of the issue slandered the other with Isabella being accused of adultery with Roger Mortimer and Edward of sodomy. Its all quite complicated! Slater outlined how Isabella aligned herself in speeches and imagery with Queen Esther of the Old Testament, another complex story involving an advisor, and how she rebuilt the Greyfriars church in London as a gesture to the city that had supported her. Meanwhile her supporters spread rumours of Edward’s sodomy via sermons.  S later then took us through imagery which may point to Isabella’s adultery ...

Probing online interviews from ARTNews with the CEOs of Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Manion Maneker, president and editorial director of Art Media, was an excellent interviewer and asked some awkward and interesting questions firstly to Charles Stewart of Sotheby’s then Guillaume Cerulti of Christie’s. Both talked about the challenges of the last year and Covid-19 but also about how they saw the future of auction houses. Interestingly they took slightly different viewpoints with Stewart felling the move to online had brough big changes that wouldn’t got away such as a move away from the rigidly timed main sales. However Cerulti felt that these would return as normality returned and that there was a real desire for people to get back together in this way. He emphasised the social aspects of sales and the importance of what you might overhear when you are there and the buzz in the room. Maneker also asked about the role of luxury goods in their businesses as well as the growing import...

Interesting online lecture from Stella Grace Lyons looking at the life and work of Edward Hopper. As usual Stella made good use of a selection of paintings to outline Hoppers life and career. I hadn’t seen his early watercolours before and loved “The Mansard Roof” bought by the Brooklyn Museum in 1923. I’s also not realised what good etching’s he produced or that he had worked as an illustrator for trade magazine. Stella talked about the role of his wife, Jo Nivinson, in his work both as his main model and as the keeper of his art records. She also kept a diary that talks about the pictures and the experience of modelling for him.

Speculative and intriguing online lecture from Birkbeck as part of the their Murray Seminar series looking in detail at a triptych in the National Gallery by Giusto de Menoboi. I must admit its not a piece I was aware of, and I now can’t wait to get back and take a look as Laura Jacobson outlined its possible origins clearly and led us through a series of possible connections between the image and who it may have been made for, making the talk like listening to a fascinating story. I love this sort of art detective work and was very convinced by her argument. I loved her lively description of the imagery in the work and what made her think it was made for a specific reason, as a gift to a young girl starting her training in a convent. We tend to look at works like this with a Coronation of the Virgin flanked by saints and a stock image but she showed us how the choice of saints and narrative panels can point to a back story. I won’t give the game away as to who she concluded it ...

Fascinating online talk from Charleston Farmhouse and part of OUTing the Past: The International Festivals of Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Trans History looking at the newly discovered erotic drawings of Duncan Grant. Darren Clarke, Head of Collections at Charleston, told us how the drawings had come into the collection of the house having been given to Edward La Bas in 1959 labelled “These drawings are very private” then having been passed from lover to lover until donated to them last year. It had previously been thought that they had been destroyed by La Bas’s sister on his death. Clarke looked talked about the influences on the pictures such as Greco-Roman traditions and contemporary physical fitness magazines while showing us a wonderful selection of these tender and joyful images. He also discussed how they fit didn’t fit with the thinking of the this time when homosexuality was still illegal and how the fitted into Duncan’s life and more publicly known art. This was a great...

Intriguing online lecture from the National Gallery comparing Rubens’ and Van Dyck’s images of Samson and Delilah. Carlo Casato talked us through both pictures, the Rubens from the National Gallery and the Van Dyck from Vienna. He talked us through the Bible story in some detail. He explained that the Rubens picture was painted for Nicolaas II Rockox and how it is shown in a painting of his house from around 1630 so we know how it was hung. He also talked us through the references to classical sculptures that Rubens had seen in Rome. He then compared the two works explaining how Rubens depicted the moment when Samson’s hair is cut whereas Van Dyck picks the moment after this when Samson’s strength has gone and how this is shown in the pictures.

More of this enjoyable series of short videos from the Metropolitan Museum filmed during lockdown highlighting recent exhibitions and specific works of art. These are emailed to members and patrons once a week, so I hope it is OK to share the links. Most take the form of a talk from the curator’s home with a powerpoint presentation. A number of the curators have picked works which are particularly poignant at this time. Episode 31 : An Early Self-Portrait by Käthe Kollwitz Nadine M. Orenstein, Drue Heinz Curator in Charge of the Department of Drawings and Prints takes a close look at one of her favourite drawings in The Met's collection, an early self-portrait by Käthe Kollwitz. I love the sense of movement given by the parallel lines of the work. She compares the drawing to a self-portrait of print of Rembrandt and a self-portrait drawing by Van Dyck. Episode 32 : The Lasting Appeal of the Met's Marble Column from Sardis Alexis Belis, Assistant Curator of Greek and R...

Interesting online talk from the National Gallery on how disability is reflected in art both in the pictures in the gallery and in the artists who created them. The talk took the form of an essay by film maker and artists, Richard Butchins, who talked about how disability has been viewed over the centuries using examples from the gallery’s collection. He also talked about how art itself has deformed bodies such as El Greco’s elongated forms, Picasso and even the beauty we see in the Venus de Milo even though her arms are missing now. He then went on to talk about artists who we might now be consider to be disabled, either physically or with some sort of mental condition, but who we don’t discuss in that context. He told us how the disabled community are reclaiming some of them. Some of these were obvious such as Van Gogh but I’d not realised before that Reynolds was deaf, Blake had cirrhosis of the liver and epilepsy and Cezanne was colour blind due to diabetes in later life and h...

A fabulous three week course from Paula Nuttall on the life and work of Hieronymus Bosch. I loved the depth and detail of this course which began by looking at the little we know about Bosch’s live and where his style of imagery may have come from, looking in particular at print culture and the marginalia of illuminated manuscripts. We also discussed his unusual structures of paintings using religious forms for secular although morally driven works. Week two we moved onto some specific works and looked at the way then represented sin and salvation and discussed whether they have a satirical side to them. I was fascinated by how many reflected popular moralistic sayings of the time and by some of the more detailed symbolism. I won’t be looking at a jug on a stick the same way ever again! Finally we concentrated on his most famous work, The Garden of Earthly Delights. Paula had a wonderful early description of the work although we are unsure who it was made for. She did speculate t...

Fascinating online lecture from the Courtauld Research Forum examining an anonymous picture of a busy 17th century square in Naples in front of the law courts. Edward Payne of Aarhus University, Denmark outlined the start of a new research project on this picture and how violence was depicted in Naples at the time. He described some of the action in this busy picture including a man being hung by his arms outside the law courts and a crowd outside who apparently don’t seem to notice this. He gave us a quick outline of events in the city in the 17th century and how these were pictured by artists and discussed whether this new idea of painting contemporary events fell within the genre of history painting. He also talked about whether these could be classed as eyewitness accounts when they were probably painted later in the studio. Did the artists have to have seen events or could be base the picture on the stories of others and reading. He also proposed that the picture might be a...

Interesting online talk from the National Gallery on the history of its building, collection and services.  Ed Dickenson led us through the history with great pictures and amusing anecdotes. He combined the story of the buildings creation and expansion well with the story of the growth of the collection. I am always fascinated by how works which are so familiar to me got into the gallery and why they have the pictures they do rather than different ones. It reminds me that I must read a book about Eastlake’s (pictured here) great buying trip round Europe which has been on my bookshelf for ages. A nice touch was that Ed included quiz questions to keep us awake which were fun but it was telling how well informed his audience was as the majority got all of them right. It was also interesting to know that there were over 1000 people on this online zoom talk. He said that moving talks online last year had been very successful and even when the world opens up again they plan to keep...