Sensing the Unseen : Step into Gossaert's 'Adoration'

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 before but maybe with long, concentrated looking you would have seen them.

I do think you ended up marveling at the technology rather than the picture. I think it’s more for people who are not so used to looking at paintings and want a guided way of looking at a picture. There was also little context of the picture in the presentation like date, where was it painted, who for etc which takes away a layer of meaning.

Closes 13 June 2021

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