Cathy's Art Diary

Excellent exhibition at the British Museum looking at the life and times of the Roman emperor Nero. This show was visually stunning but also told the story clearly and carefully explaining the myths and reality of his reign. There were some wonderful objects mainly set out well to allow social distancing although I’m afraid showing coins doesn’t really work at the moment. There was a bit of queuing to start with but people spread out after the first section. You were greeted by this statue of the young Nero and this was followed by a lovely line up of his ancestors and a good explanation of how he came to power. I am sure I was not the only person of my age relating the statues to the actors in “I, Claudius”. There was a good section on his conquests including Britain with a moving slave chain found in a bog in Wales. I particularly liked a section on his love of theatre with some lovely frescos of actors and theatres which sat with displays on gladiatorial fights including some...

Interesting online lecture from the National Gallery on animals and symbolism in Dutch 17th century art. Belle Smith led us through various paintings in the gallery’s collection looking at their symbolism. Although it was billed as being about animals it broadened out into symbolism in general. It was well done in a video presentation with a Q&A after but I’ve gone over this ground quite a lot recently and I didn’t learn much that was new to me. It was nice to visit some old favourites such as this picture by Jan Miense Molenaer along with “Boy and a Girl with an Eel and a Cat” by his wife, Judith Leyster. Both had hidden agendas on peace and war.

Interesting online lecture from the Churches Conservation Trust looking at the development of the Crucifix in English churches in the Middle Ages. John Munns of Magdalene College, Cambridge explained that until the Reformation every parish church in England had a Crucifixion scene usually on a beam or screen in front the chancel arch. There are no complete sets surviving but he discussed the few remaining fragments and compared these to other Crucifixion images to look at how they developed from 1050 to the end of the 13th century. He talked us through the move from showing a triumphant Christ often clothed as a king to a suffering Christ with legs bent and hanging from his arms in a crown of thorns. He explained how the crown of thorns image became more popular after King Louis IX brought it from Constantinople to France. He also looked at how imagery influenced devotion and visa versa. He introduced us to this beautiful fragment from All Saint’s South Cerney, found with a pair...

Interesting sculpture trail on the King William Lawns of the Old Royal Naval College by Josie Spencer. I found these works by chance as I walked around Greenwich. I saw no adverts for them within the Painted Hall, where I had just been, and on explanation of them on site while I was there. I caught the eye of another lady who also looked intrigued but puzzled. I was therefore glad to find more information online later to realise that this was a temporary exhibit and not a new permanent feature. I loved their realistic but fragmented nature and the way they sat in the space looking like damaged classical works. The description mentions their different colours but I must admit I didn’t notice that at the time. I liked the way the one shown here combined a very finished real female figure and the jigsaw like male one. Closes 6 August 2021

Surreal installation in the Painted Hall of the Old Royal Naval College by Luke Jerram. I’ve been wanting to see this work, which has travelled around the country for ages, but it seems to have just left various places I’ve visited so I was pleased to see it was going to be near where I live and it was a good excuse to go and see the recently refurbished Painted Hall. This giant, internally lit, scale replica of the earth hung in the hall and is meant to represent the view of the earth from space. It revolves slowly and there were couches set up which people had sunk onto to watch it mesmerised. It was accompanied by a specially commissioned surround-sound composition by Dan Jones. The effect was beautiful, calming and a dazzling blue contrast to the muted colours of the walls and ceiling. As you looked at the hall itself you kept looking back and being surprised to see it hanging there. It felt like it had been captured in the space. A strange bringing of the whole of the outsid...

Moving online talk from the British Academy looking at a project to study the experiences of war widows which resulted in the making of a quilt. This event took the form of a discussion between various people involved in the project chaired by Sue Pritchard from Royal Museums Greenwich who were the first to show the quilt at the Queen’s House. I live nearby and am so sorry I missed that back in 2019. Nadine Muller from Liverpool John Moores University had initiated the project via an exercise to record the experiences of war widows in oral history interviews as she had found when she came to research the subject that very little had been written about them. During her interviews she realised that some of the women found it difficult to talk and she wondered if some sort of workshop might help them. Lois Blackburn, an artist and co-founder of Arthur-Martha which had worked on similar projects, met Nadine in the village they both lived in and suggested workshops around handcraft a...

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...

Fascinating online lecture from the York Festival of Ideas on the Russian 20th century artist Natalia Goncharova. Elena Kashina from the Centre of Lifelong Learning, University of York took us through the artists career via a series of paintings showing how she forged a ground-breaking style based on tradition and innovation, was the conduit of the Russian avant-garde to the rest of the west and influenced developments in the performing arts in the 20th century. I had really enjoyed the Goncharova exhibition at Tate Modern a few years ago so it was lovely to revisit these pictures and to have the various art groups she started explained in more detailed. I loved the idea of the Donkey’s Tail group painted their faces and advertised where they were going to be to attract crowds and the press. I liked the section on her work for the Ballet Russe and the artistic family she joined there as I have been doing some research on them recently.  

Technical online lecture from the National Gallery looking at how perspective works. Nick Pace took us though what perspective is, basically a visual trick to show space in a painting which is just a flat surface with paint on it. He showed us works from before it was invented, like the one shown here,  to show how artists dealt with these issues without the theory.  He talked about how artists learned to place the horizon to give an indication of where we are looking from by showing us a series of National Gallery pictures with the horizon moving down them from one where the horizon is above the work to one where it is below. He them had good illustrations to explain what a vanishing point it is, how it works and how it can be used to show the relationship between images in a composition. I must admit I understood it at the time but I am not sure it has stayed with me. He finally took us through various pictures, painted after the discovery of mathematical perspective, ...

Detailed and fascinating online lecture from the Wallace Collection looking at a painting from 1628 “The Art Gallery of Cornelius der Geest” by Willem Van Haecht. Ben Van Beneden, Director of Rubenshius where the picture is on display, took us through the genre of gallery or cabinet paintings before taking us through this work in detailed. He started by identifying paintings and sculptures in the picture then moved on to the people. I loved the detail of this and the detective work involved. He then looked at how the images of many of the people in the work were based on portraits by Rubens and Van Dyck and argued that the work could almost be considered a collaboration between them with the aim of recording their social and intellectual group. He likened this to the Stoic philosophy they admired and the idea that it shows the ingenuity of art and the art of looking.  

Interesting online lecture from National Gallery looking at Jan Matejko’s role in the Polish arts and crafts movement, Young Poland. This was organised to compliment the current display of Jan Matejko’s “Copernicus” and Julia Griffen, curator of an exhibition at the William Morris Gallery on the Polish Arts and Crafts Movement took us through the artist’s career looking both at his paintings and his decorative work. She outlined the role of Matejko’s pictures at a time when Poland didn’t exist and how he used them to create a pantheon of national figures. She also looked at how the discovery of the tomb of King Casimir and the ancient crown jewels fed into this. She then went on to look in some detail at his work to de-Baroque St Mary the Virgin Cathedral in Krakow and to design a new Gothic interior. She had wonderful slides of the designs and the finished work, She also looked at how he influenced his main student, Stanislaw Wyspianski, Poland’s equivalent of William Morris.

Fun two sessions of online lectures from Paula and Geoff Nuttall recreating two of their guided tours of two Italian cities and buildings. I’ve not done any other guided tour type talks by other people as I thought it would feel strange to not actually go to a place, however as I’ve so enjoyed other talks and courses by this couple I thought I’d give it a go. I enjoyed their balance of good solid art history alongside a sense of moving around a place even down to pictures of how we would have arrived and where we might be having our coffee. Week one was Lucca with Geoff. I had previously done a five week course by him on the silk merchants of the city but it was nice to concentrate on what was actually in the city. The first lecture walked us through the cathedral looking at it from a pilgrim’s perspective then moved onto San Frediano’s with he tombs of St Richard at St Zita. In the second half he looked in particular at the painters who came to the city including Filippino Lippi w...

Complex online lecture from the Courtauld Research Forum looking at Euguerrand Quarton’s Coronation of the Virgin in Avignon. I didn’t know this altarpiece from 1453 with a rather strange Trinity which shows the Father and Son as the same young, bearded man reversed. Emma Capron from the National Gallery took us through the various possible explanations of its iconography looking at how it reflects the wishes of the donor Jean de Montagny who had a devotion to the Trinity. She also looked at how it might reflect the visionary beliefs of the Carthusian monks as well as those of the mystic Bridget of Sweden. It does seem to closely follow Bridget’s writings. It was originally placed in the funeral chapel of Pope Innocent VI, the founder of the monastery, and elements of it may refer to the foundation story as well as encouraging people to pray for the soul of the founder. I do enjoy this sort of detailed analysis of a single image particularly one that is new to me.  

Fascinating online lecture from York Festival of Ideas looking at 19th century Russian landscape painting. Elena Kashina from the Centre for Lifelong Learning, University of York pointed out that Western panting had not really been known in Russia before the time of Peter the Great and when an academy was founded in 1757 it took on the French pattern of history painting being the highest genre. However Russia needed more grounded art and a form for itself. Landscape emerged and filled this role. She took us through the main artists, highlighting some of their works and pointing out what they brought to the genre. She talked us through the symbolism of the work and how it was upholding Russian ideas of rural life and folk culture as well as religious and spiritual ideals. I knew none of these artists and like her clear structured approach. I will certainly be looking out for them in the future. The picture I liked best that she showed was “Spring – Big Water” by Isaac Levitan fro...

Sobering public exhibition in the courtyard at the back of St Martin in the Fields of photographs of Central London taken by homeless people during lockdown. Dan Barber and Lucy Wood paid six homeless people to take photographs everyday with disposable cameras. They were paid £20 a camera and could have one a day. They were encouraged to spend less than 1 hour 45 minutes a day doing it so they were paid at the London living wage. There were four stands of pictures with quotes from the participants, Carly, Darren, Kelly, Crag, Joe and Andre. Sadly Kelly died during the project. They highlighted issues which I hadn’t thought of such as the fact that the few people who were out and about stopped carrying cash so were unable to give money to those on the streets. They saw the unseen aspects and the changes the lockdown brought. The exhibition comes with an accompanying book. Website of the project : Www.outofhome.org.uk Closes 31 July 2021  

Colourful display at National Gallery of four works by artists in residence Rosalind Nashashibi in response to work in their collection from 17th Spain. There were just four pictures which were hung amongst the paintings by Velazquez, Zurbaran and Murillo. I am fond of these largely brown works but it was nice to see them hung with these pops of colour. The commentary said that she was looking at how paintings could convey stories through objects, animals and figures. I’m not sure I always understood the response but they worked well in the space and made you look again at the works around them. Closes 27 June 2021      

Interesting exhibition National Gallery presenting the new shortlist of sculptures for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. I always try to get to this show and am slightly obsessed by the Fourth Plinth commissions. This time I found all the entries a bit woke and you seemed to have to know a lot about what they meant to appreciate them. It is of course good if there is depth to the work, but I think first and foremost it needs to work in the space and either make an obvious statement or be beautiful, or preferably both. This time I voted for Teresa Margolles “850 Imprints”, shown here, imprints of faces evidently mounted like a Central American skull rack or Tzompantli around the top of the plinth The plan is that the faces will be those of transgender people and will be infused with their hair and skin cells which I must admit is slightly creepy. It is planned that it will weather during the year it would be on the plinth and I like the idea that there is built in change. My...

Neat exhibition at the National Gallery of Polish artist, Jan Matejko’s iconic painting of Copernicus. This picture is on loan from Kraków's Jagiellonian University founded in the 14th century. I knew nothing about this picture but quickly learned from the excellent commentary that this picture is an icon of Polish art bringing together the famous 19th century Polish artist, Jan Matejko and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who I’d not realised was Polish, or from an area now part of Poland. The picture shows Copernicus presenting his discovery, that the earth moves round the sun, to God on the roof of the university. He is surrounded by the scientific instruments he would have used and it was a lovely touch to show the picture alongside contemporary examples of those instruments from the university which belonged to an earlier astronomer and were almost certainly used by Copernicus. There was also a 1543 copy of his publication “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium”.   Closes ...

Innovative exhibition at the National Gallery highlighting Gossaert’s “Adoration of the Magi”. I love this picture and it is one of those I have to see in the run up to Christmas. I therefore know it well already. This show presented the picture then, within small booths, you listen to a soundscape of the work and see some amazing high-definition images of it. You could zoom into sections of the picture but I’m not sure I mastered that technique. It didn’t seem to zoom into the sections I wanted to look at.   You were then encouraged to look at the picture again while a poem written from the point of view of the black king, Balthasar. I’m not too sure what I thought of the show though. The high-definition images were amazing and you could see detail which you don’t notice with the naked eye but it would have been nice to have had more time in quite a processed process with the picture itself. Again the soundscape made you realise there were things in the picture I’d not seen b...

Disappointing exhibition at Victoria and Albert Museum on bags. I say disappointing because I’d been really looking forward to this show but I did it at the end of a long day at the museum and I don’t think I did it justice. I want to try to go back and give it another go. I usually love their shows like this so I suspect it was more me that it. The show was roughly themed but quite slow to go round as the labels were very low down and you had to match the silhouette of the bag to the object to find out any details. The main labels described a theme then the actual description of the object was in even smaller writing. Some people were resorting to reading them out to their friends which made things even slower. My patience went in the section on status and identity which seemed to be all about designers, celebrities and influencers. Again I’m sure I was just tired and had worn my mask too long. On another day a Margaret Thatcher handbag would have intrigued me and a Sex in the ...

Delightful exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum of watercolours from the Renaissance. Watercolour was an unusual medium in this period but was widely used by manuscript illuminators and miniaturists as well as by other artists to enable them to sketch outdoors. The show was arranged by topic covering landscape, nature, design and portraits. Highlights included a rare painting of Nonesuch Palace by Joris Hoefnagel from 1568, Jacques le Moyne de Morgues botanical studies, armour designs by Jacob Halder and Holbein’s miniature of Anne of Cleeves.   It was a nice touch to include some work from Mughal India particularly their Christian images copied from Western prints. I was amazed to see an Isaac Oliver miniature which had got to India and been mounted in a Mughal painted paper frame. Closes 8 August 2021 Review Telegraph

Beautifully refurbished gallery at the Victoria and Albert Museum for displaying and explaining the Raphael Sistine Chapel cartoons. I have always been fond of this room and the cartoons and the refurbishment makes them look even better. There is new brighter but subtle lighting and the walls are a lovely dark blue colour makes the cartoons pop off the walls. For the first time the light makes it more obvious that the works are on paper and up close you can see the texture and the old fold marks. They are shown with a few contemporary works by artists Raphael knew and worked with, as well as the huge earlier Legend of St George altarpiece from Valencia which is a good reminder of the development in art over the previous 100 years. All of this helps to give atmosphere without detracting from the cartoons themselves. While the refurbishment was being done the opportunity was taken to do lots of research work on the cartoons which is well presented online. It is a shame that, in th...

Stunning exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the Alice books and how they have inspired artists since they were published. This show got a good balance between style and substance. It was a very modern design with lots of installations like the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party shown here which helped to space out the show for a post-Covid age but there was also heaps of archive material described in detail. At some points even I felt there might be too many facts, such as sheet music for a peace inspired by Wonderland by Tolkien’s Great uncle! The show started by telling the story of how the books were written, from Dodgson telling the story to the Alice Liddell and her sisters on a boat trip, though John Tenniel’s illustrations and various editions of the work. This went hand in hand with displays on how the book reflected the Victorian era being published just six years after “Origin of the Species” and five years before the 1870 Education Act. Next was a fascinating...

Fascinating online lecture from the Churches Conservation Trust discussing the conservation project for Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. I spent a year living in Liverpool and loved the quirkiness of the Catholic Cathedral or Paddy’s Wigwam as it is affectionately known, and was aware that it had structural issues.   Jon Wright of Purcell Architects who have done the conservation survey and work on the lantern, took us through the history of the cathedral and the different proposed designs. However most interestingly he talked about how he tackled the issue of the leaks from the lantern onto the sanctuary below. After an extensive survey of the lantern and an analysis of previous conservation work, they determined that it was caused by small capillary holes in the resin holding the glass panels together. This would have been impossible to rectify without dismantling the whole lantern plus it was decided that the resign was an integral part of the lantern as an art work rather...

Interesting exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse of new work by South African artist Lisa Brice. I had seen Brice’s work before and liked it and it looked good in this space. I love that it is hung like an installation with a stripe of the blue pictures around the room making you look at them as a whole and then to walk slowly around the set taking in the detail of each work. The works themselves take ownership of how women are, and have been, portrayed in art and record small private moments of lone women all done in just Cobalt or Prussian Blue which gives them a cohesive appearance. Some of the works responded to the sister show of work by Nina Hamnet and in this picture you can see one of these works echoing Roger Fry’s picture of Hamnett in an Omega Workshop dress. I also liked the texture of the shadows in some profile works and again one is shown here. Closes 30 August 2021  

C olourful exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse of work by Nina Hamnett. As you walked into the gallery you were hit by these startlingly good, colourful pictures from still-lives to portraits with a fascinating room of drawings. I liked the way the show concentrated Hamnet’s art rather than her also colourful life often defined by her relationships with other people rather than her work. However a bit more background information would have been useful to cut down on the Googling later. I loved her striking portraits particularly those of her landladies including this one. The labels were nicely written and I liked one for one landlady picture which described their relationship as “a gentile war zone”! The middle room was dominated by a wonderful full-length picture of a man in a top hat from 1920. Including the drawings added insight to the paintings. My favourites were portraits of Lytton Strachey achieved in just a few lines. Most surprising were the lovely still liv...

Atmospheric installation at Fabrica in Brighton by Olafur Eliasson. First created for a gallery in New York in 1998 this work is part of the Towner Collection in Eastbourne and usually shown in white spaces. It seems to be one of those works where owning means you own the concept and idea but it seems to be made anew for each space it is shown in. It consists of over 3000 cut saplings and branches which Fabrica sourced from a local wood and the end of the show it will be chipped and used as mulch for new teams at the local Stanmer Park. I didn’t realise that at the time and, by coincidence, we walked round Stanmer Park the next day. It consists of enclosed pathways and you can choose your route through. I loved the way the light filtered through the branches and the contrast between the natural materials and the old stone floor. The sensation was a bit claustrophobic though and I was pleased the pathways were quite short. Closes 20 June 2020

Fascinating online lecture from British Museum looking at what has been learned from bringing a window from Canterbury Cathedral to the current Becket exhibition at the museum. Leonie Seliger from Canterbury Cathedral, Glass Department and Rachel Kopmans from York University Toronto and an expert on the miracle stories of Becket were a great double act dividing the talk between then as a dialogue. They outline the discoveries they had made by combing their expertise. A great piece of detective work! They talked about how some of the miracle stories were shown in the window and how closer observation and a deep knowledge of the stories had enabled them to confirm which story was which. I loved their description of closely studying a figure being washed at Becket’s tomb and finding spots confirming it a the story of Ralph the Leper. I loved Leonie’s story of phoning Rachel to says “Hurray we have leprosy”! There work has also confirmed that one panel in in fact in the wrong window...

Interesting online lecture from the National Gallery exploring the female nude in paintings. Fiona Alderton took us on a tour of female nudes in the galleries collection raising questions for us to think about when viewing them such as who they were painted for, where would they have hung and whether we felt they were an honest view of the female form. We talked about how body types had changed over the centuries, or I suppose the ideal of the female form had changed. Her choice of works ranged from a Mary Magdalene by Corregio as the earliest work to pictures by the Impressionists. She talked in some detail about the Titian mythological works and this Judgement of Paris by Rubens and how the chosen subject allowed the artists to combine pictures of women from a range of viewpoints.

Interesting online lecture from the Wallace Collection comparing the Grűnes Gewwölde in Dresden and the later collecting of Richard Wallace. Theresa Witting from Staatliche Kunstsammlugen in Dresden and Ada de Wit from the Wallace Collection discussed the original of their collections of cabinet of curiosity type objects. The Dresden Collection had its origins the 16th century under the Electors of Saxony who developed the private kunstkammer and the pubic Grűnes Gewwölde which the museum has recreated. The Wallace Collection was developed in the 19th century by Richard Wallace during a fashion for collecting these types of objects and the picture here shows part of his collection of antiquities in 1880. They them compared their collections highlighting various objects that they had in common such as a ewer shaped like an ostrich with a horseshoe in its mouth in London and a set of drinking vessels of a similar design in Dresden and two precious objects in carved rock crystal and g...

Fascinating exhibition at Tate Britain looking at how Turner painted contemporary life. We often look at Turner as an Old Master, which of course he is, and forget than he was painting the contemporary life of his times, commenting on wars and recording new inventions and ideas. Although these works are history to us, they weren’t to him. The show was nicely arranged in chronological themes with the dates of the main events painted around the top of the room. I loved the works which acted as reporting such as a painting of a theatre the morning after a fire. I was scathing at first of his Battle of Trafalgar picture but then read about the research he did to paint it and it was moving to see his sketch books of his visit to the ship and to read about him interviewing veterans of the battle. It is easy to forget that Britain was at war with France for much of Turner’s career and it was interesting to see his works which reflected the effect of this on home front both in terms of ...

Beautiful exhibition at Tate Britain of work by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye dating from her time at the Royal Academy schools in 2003 to pictures painted during the Covid lockdowns. This was a beautifully hung show with little explanation and themed rather than chronological rooms. It just left the pictures and the people in them to talk to each other. The works were all figurative, either individual figures or groups. She captures gestures and posture beautifully in loose paint work. Yiadom-Boakye is also a poet and calls the titles of her works “an extra brush stroke”. They are enigmatic and make you start to build stories about the people in your mind. You see echoes of the history of art without them being derivative. I felt like I had met a lot of interesting new people in this show.   Closed 31 May 2021 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard

Stunning installation at Tate Britain by Heather Phillipson taking up the whole of the grand central galleries on the first floor. I’m not sure I understood the description of this show or really understood what it was about, “changed eco-systems, maladaptive seasons and unearthed life forms”, however I loved the way it filled the space and changed the atmosphere. The first room, shown here, was bathed in red light and dominated by a giant papier machete tree, with video screens of parts of animals on an island in the middle. The octagon at the centre of the space had a pool of water surrounded by strange creatures made of old oil cans with papier machete horns drinking from it. The end room was bathed in blue light and Turner like clouds with bombs in sand buckets. You are drawn to a strange hut at the end. Take time to look behind this where there was a mesmerising video of a peach as the sun, rising and falling. Closes 23 January 2022 Reviews Guardian Telegraph Even...

Excellent two-day online conference from the Wallace Collection to mark the reuniting of their “Rainbow Landscape” with “Het Steen” from the National Gallery in an exhibition for the first time since they were together in Rubens’s family. Day one looked at Rubens’s creative process and how detailed technical analysis of the work can illuminate this. There were talks on how Rubens had a habit of expanding works as he worked on them with each iteration of the work being a complete composition. We looked in particular at these two particular landscapes and how they seem to have grown in parallel with each other, each starting a small landscapes but then expanding with new panels in two more phases. Day two we looked at what inspired Rubens and I learned about the notion of otium, the art of active leisure including painting and contemplating landscapes. We also looked at Rubens use of mythological figures to show fecundity and fruitfulness in landscapes. Most fascinating was an analy...