Cathy's Art Diary

Useful online lecture from the National Gallery looking at Van Eyck’s “Arnolfini Portrait” and the some of the theories about it. Katy Torbard led us though looking at the picture in some detail highlighting items in it which may be symbolic and enlarging sections which may not be so clear to the naked eye such as the roundels of the Passion of Christ around the convex mirror. She then talked us though some of the ideas about the symbolism in it and who the couple may be. It was a great help that she named the art historians behind the date behind the ideas. This is a picture I have always been fascinated by and I have seen a lot of tv programmes on it and read about it so it was really useful to have a chronological run through the various ideas about it. I suspect we will never know the answers but that doesn’t detract from it being a picture that draws you in.

Interesting online lecture from the Churches Conservation Trust looking at English monastic and mendicant churches before and after the Dissolution in the late 1530s. James Clark from the University of Exeter argued that the folk memory of ruined, abandoned churches post-Dissolution was not the general experience of many of them. Based on study of Cromwell’s Commissioners inventories and recent archaeological evidence he looked at how the churches were still being reconfigured, redecorated and commissioning new art works and furnishing right up to the date their monasteries were dissolved. He then discussed how many of the churches were reused after with some like Canterbury and Westminster Abbeys becoming cathedrals whereas some become parish churches. Some Abbeys were also reoccupied after a hiatus such as Tewkesbury and St Albans. The talk was enlivened with good illustrations and was an interesting contrast to various talks I have done recently on 16th century art on the con...

Fascinating online lecture from the Courtauld Research Forum looking at how and why souls were represented on 12th century effigies. Shirin Fozi from the University of Pittsburgh talked about how this research had come out of the work she did on her book on Romanesque effigies as she realised there were a number of pieces which depicted souls going to heaven often shown as being taken by angels. The phrase “guest of the body” to describe the soul comes from a poem by Hadrian written shortly before he died which appears on a number of tombs. She discussed a number of lovely images including the attached of the tomb of Presbyter Bruno in Hildesheim Cathedral from 1195. She also talked about how these images were also popular on reliquaries and she speculated that it may be iconography which is being used for people who their community hoped might become a saint.     

Fascinating online interview with photographer Michael Najjar to mark Photo London. Najjar has become fascinated by space exploration since watching a live rocket launch in 2011. Since then he has built up a body of 65 photographs and 5 video installations in his Outer Space series. He sees space as a unique cultural and scientific world. He discussed how he had undergone space training in Russia with cosmonauts and had experimented with taking photographs in a weightless environment. He constructs realities to show the possibilities of space. He then took us through a selection of his works explaining how they were achieved and what they represent. There was a sense of the sublime about a number of these and in fact the picture shown here was inspired by Caspar David Friedrick’s “The Ice Field”. It shows the wreck of the Virgin Atlantic Galactica in 2014 made up of a digitally manipulated press footage. Sadly didn’t manage to get to Photo London to see the works in the person ...

Moving exhibition   at the Bowes Museum of new work by Martin Kinnear. The show had been scheduled to happen pre-Covid but became about it as he worked though the lockdowns. These were big bold paintings of Northern towns and landscapes which were mainly unnamed but were accompanied by a profound commentary. Kinnear had been disabled in an accident so the pictures were also about how life can change suddenly. There was a good video interview with him discussion the works including the Pieta in the show, a dramatic picture which should be acquired by a church. There was also a video installation inspired by local waterfalls of cascading words. We went a week before it closed when we were nearby on holiday. It was lovely that there seemed to be local people in responding to the works. I have to give a shout out to the museum too. I had not been before but was very impressed. In fact we didn’t have long enough on out first visit and ended up going back again the next day. Cl...

Interesting exhibition at the Cristea Roberts Gallery bringing together works on paper by Richard Serra and Eduardo Chillida. These black and white works looked stark and beautiful in this white space. I didn’t find them attractive as individual objects but as a group they looked good and I loved the processes and thinking behind them. Both artists are both better known as sculptors and these abstract works seemed to explore the idea of form. Reading the commentary they were both interested in the physical process of print making and some of these used unusual materials such as Paintstik and silica and the type of paper they used seems to have been important in the process. Closed 23 April 2022

Thoughtful exhibition at the Cristea Roberts Gallery of new work by Barbara Walker. All the pieces confronts and readdresses the under-representation of Black figures in Western art history in exquisite drawings of old Master Works leaving t confronts and readdresses the under-representation black figures in Western art history the white figures that usually hold the attention and thereby emphasising the black. Some included the backgrounds but others isolated the figures. Many of the works are familiar ones but all these pieces were just called Vanishing Point with a number and the earlier artist in brackets. I did find myself looking up a few of the works I didn’t know. I loved a lone Magi and his attendant and a Dutch family group picture with the family now blank and only the servant visible. I thought this was a subtle and interesting way to make a point and worked well because the drawings were so beautiful. The most moving ones where those which so obviously felt like a p...

Fascinating exhibition at Philip Mould & Company of male portraits which say something about how clothing communicates masculinity. The show was designed to compliment the current menswear exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum and looked at clothing as signifiers as well as how painting clothing became a means of painterly expression. As always at this gallery the commentaries were excellent bringing these points out subtly. There were some lovely pictures covering about 400 years. I liked the inclusion of Sir John Norris in armour making the point that armour was as fashion conscious as clothing. At the other end of the timescale I loved Walter Greaves portrait of James Abbott McNeil Whistler sitting with his back to the Thames in a fetching hat and white waistcoat. My favourites though were this delightful group of portraits of the Ffolliott brothers from 1603. They wear matching doublets but shows each with the attributes of their age at the time. Closed 20 May 2...

Small exhibition at Somerset House looking at the role of the bedroom using art by five of the artists in the Somerset House Studios. Curated by Lucia Rios Gonzalez and Jonny Tanna of the Harlesden High Street art space the show explores the changing function of the bedroom as more people work from home. I wasn’t always sure I could spot the link between the art work and the brief but there were some interest pieces. I liked YA’s and Cassandra Burrell’s painted leather jacket but I wasn’t sure of the link to bedrooms. I preferred there plaster cast of books on a shelf with a face painted across the spines. My favourite piece, shown here, was Tyreis Holder’s bright work in carpet which distorted the room. I also likes KO___LO’s use of the fireplace to display digital photo frames and memorabilia. Closes 17 July 2022

Disappointing installation in the courtyard of Somerset House by Leeroy New. The show consisted of three large ships made of reused and recycles material plus waste plastics and was there to mark World Earth Day 2022. I had seen it being advertised as it was installed and was excited to see the end result but I’m afraid it was a bit underwhelming and looked like what it was, bits of rubbish on a metal frame. It had lost any sense of the basic structures being boats and they looked lost in the grand surroundings. It was a worthy idea but didn’t quite work in the space. Closed 26 April 2022

Interesting exhibition at Two Temple Place looking at the ceramic traditions of Black women. The show also looked at the evolution of ceramics from purely domestic objects to fine art. In places the story could have been told more clearly however it is a difficult venue to display in so information boards were not always directly with the display cases they referred to. The show started by looking at the work of Ladi Kwaki   and how the pottery of the Gwari ethnic group is taught in female line There was a large section on the Pottery Training Centre set up by Michael Cardew, a pupil of Bernard Leach in 1950 founded the   centre. He aimed to introduce ceramic techniques to men to make for new middle class market. The show also focused on people who had trained at the centre and their legacy such as George Sempagala who worked in Uganda. Upstairs there was a section called the Politics of Clay, which looked at how three contemporary artists have looked at clay in a rad...

Charming  exhibition at the National Maritime Museum of paintings of Venice by Canaletto. The show had 26 pictures commissioned by Lord John Russell, the future 4th Earl of Bedford in 1731 for £188. The show included one of the invoices for an instalment from the agent Joseph Smith. They were nicely hung at eye level so you could see all the wonderful details and felt like walking round a set of large postcards. There were good maps to show you where the sites were and each had a good explanation of the view and the techniques used. They were roughly arranged by type of site eg squares, churches etc. I t was a nice touch to have a section at the end on modern Venice and the environmental issues it faces. Closes 25 September 2022 Reviews Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/exhibitions/canalettos-venice-revisited-national-maritime-

Engaging online lecture from the Wallace Collection introducing their current exhibition on the influence of the Rococo on the designs of the Walt Disney studio. Helen Jackson, curator of the exhibition and formally of the Wallace Collection, explained how Walt Disney spent time in France both in the First World War, as an ambulance driver and later in 1935 when he bought illustrated fairy stories and art books as the start of a research library for the company. She talked us though the Rococo influences in the films both plans which came to fruition such as “Beauty and the Beast” and others which changed during the production process such as “Cinderella”. She pointed out that one of the earliest animations involved porcelain figures which came to life and danced. She also looked at the similarities in workshop traditions between Disney and the porcelain factories with the idea of many skills being employed and the importance of small, repetitive and highly skilled tasks. I can...

Excellent six week online course form the National Gallery looking at the history and art of the main centres in Northern Europe in the Renaissance. Jo Walton took us clearly though the period splitting the lectures geographically starting with France focusing on Paris, Dijon and the Loire, moving on to Bruges and Flanders, the court of the Holy Roman Empire, Nuremberg and Durer, London and the Hanseatic League and finishing with Antwerp. This order did take us on a rough chronology of the time as well with some overlap. In each case Walton blended the history of the area and the art it produced showing how the two often went hand in hand for example when rulers used art to promote and control their image or competed with each other to commissioned the richest and best work. She tired things together clearly so I now have a much better overview of the history of the period although I’m not sure I will ever understand the intricacies of the Hapsburgs. Despite this being a period I ...

Stunning exhibition at the National Gallery on the life and work of Raphael. I had been so looking forward to this exhibition, which had originally been planned for 2020 to mark 500 years since the artists death, and it didn’t disappoint. You are greeted by the gallery’s own Mond Crucifixion which looked amazing and it just continued getting better and better ending on a high of a room of portraits. It was good to have the small leaflet with the pictures descriptions back as it does stop people bunching around the labels and eases the flow around the show. The show was given added grandeur by being in the more classic upstairs rooms and there with wonderful vistas to iconic pictures throughout. There were some great loans including one of the Vatican tapestries, the portrait of Bindo Altoviti from Washington and beautiful Madonnas from Naples and Madrid. Where significant pieces couldn’t be moved there were good facsimiles including one shown at eye level of the School of Athens...

Charming  exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum to mark the centenary of the Royal Academy of Dance. The show looked at the origins of the organisation which developed from the Dancers’ Circle Dinners of the 1920s and had a fascinating section on its five founders who had had careers in the principal schools of ballet, French, Italian and Russian, using costumes and playbills. The middle section looked at the dance classes run by the organisation with some fun photographs and a lovely pamphlet “Grooming for Ballet” from 1964. Maybe if I’d had a copy when I was doing classes in the late 1960s I might have stayed the course and not given up because classes clashed with Crackerjack. Finally there were sections on the international dance competition which they organise and plans for a new headquarters. There was a good blend between the past, present and future. Closes 29 August 2022  

Sumptuous exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the history of menswear. Every vista across the show is beautiful and it is packed with wonderful clothes and portraits. I loved the gentle theming but was please that I had done an online curators talk on it before I went as I think this made the themes more obvious. I loved the fact you came into a black and white space on the theme of undressed which took a series of classical sculpture and looked at their influence on drapery and men’ body shape and body image. This found a link between the men of the Grand Tour, Ballet Russe costumes and David’s fig leaf. I loved a joyous video by Anthony Patrick Manieri called “Arrested Movement” of naked men of various shapes and sizes dancing. The section, overdressed, looked at how power and wealth have been shown through exuberant clothing. I loved the section on colour which placed a rainbow of mannequins on a billiard table. It also had a section on lace including this...

Interesting online lecture from the Royal Academy looking at the life of Whistler’s muse Joanna Hiffernan who features in a current exhibition at the gallery. The curator Margaret McDonald from the University of Glasgow was interviewed by Rebecca Lyons from the Royal Academy and they talked about McDonald’s research for the show and looked at some of the pictures in it, particularly the three “Woman in White” paintings which have been reunited for the exhibition. They discussed the relationship between Whistler and Hiffernan and his family and friends’ reactions to it as well as the pictures of her by Courbet in the show. It was a good introduction to the show which I have since so, yet again, I am going to say watch this space!

Useful online lecture from the National Gallery introducing their current exhibition on Raphael. The curator, Matthais Wivel, explained how the show is anchored by the galleries own ten Raphael’s and talked about each of them in turn and where they sat in the artist’s career. He also looked at how these related to the loans to the show. He talked about Raphael as a collaborator and how he was influenced by other artists such as Leonardo and Michelangelo as well as how diverse and varied his career was ranging from painting, through architecture, archaeology, print making and design. I went to the exhibition a couple of days later at a members preview and spotted the speaker taking guests around. Again watch this space for a review of the show but the talk was a good preparation for it.

Delightful exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse of paintings and photographs of artist studios. Curated by Langlands & Bell the show looks at artists’ studios in which the artists themselves are conspicuously absent which compliments a visit to the farmhouse itself. They drew the works from the collection of former art dealer Katrin Bellinger which contains over 1600 pictures of studios. I loved that the works were shown with no immediate explanation and it was fun to go round guessing the artist. We later found out there is a list you can get from the information desk. We’ve been around with the list since checking our answers. Closed 29 August 2022  

Intriguing  exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse of works from throughout the career of contemporary artists Langlands and Bell which look at Utopian spaces. Most of the works were low relief sculptures in white displayed against pale backgrounds either in a table or one the walls. They formed apparently abstracts shapes. I would have like to know a bit more about the buildings involved and the Utopian ideas they represent. I’m sure I will go again as I’m at Charleston a lot and next time I will try to go around with the Bloomberg Connects app which might give me a bit more information. I responded more to ones where I knew the building and my favourite was one from 1993 which showed five Piece Halls or cloth markets from Yorkshire. I also liked the inclusion of the remnants of their first work “Kitchen” from 1978 which consisted of a nostalgic draw of old cutlery and kitchen implements as it reminded of my Grandmother’s kitchen. I must admit I’d not come across Ben Langlands ...

Interesting online lecture from the Victoria and Albert Museum introducing their current exhibition on menswear. The curators of the show Rosalind McKever and Claire Wilcox took us through the thinking behind the layout of the show and highlighted some of the exhibits. They talked about the three acts of the show called undressed, overdressed and redressed and how they chose to represent these themes. Most interesting was their description of the finale which featured three dresses worn by men which all mark iconic events which had happened while they were planning the show. They also talked about how all departments of the museum have been involved in the show. They come from the painting/drawing and textile/fashion and they talked about how their ideas sometimes came from a picture and sometimes from an item of clothing. Having been to the show since (watch this space for a blog post) it made me appreciate the colour and display choices more and gave me specific things to lo...

Intriguing online lecture from ARTscapades on 19th century Danish painting. This was a topic I knew very little about but David Jackson from the University of Leeds took us clearly through why this was called a Gold Age despite it being a politically very difficult period for the country. He then showed us a selection of beautiful paintings grouped under the three main subjects they worked on portraits, landscapes and genre works and talked about how these reflected the political situation. I loved the clarity of the pictures and wasn’t surprised that one of the leading artists C.W. Eckersberg has been trained by Ingres in Paris. I will certainly look out for these works in future and it seems like a good excuse to go back to Copenhagen.

Interesting online lecture from Richard Stemp on the 15th century artists, Carlo Crivelli. Stemp based his talk on an exhibition at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham which I had hoped to get to but ran out of time. I’ve always been fascinated by Crivelli as the National Gallery have a lot of his rather strange pictures and years ago I did a study morning with the speaker on the large Annunciation painting which overran and was great fun. Stemp talked about how Crivelli balances reality and illusionism in his work to delineate real and visionary space. There were details in the pictures which I’d never questioned with a modern eye as we are now used to surrealism but I now realise how unusual these details were at the time and the reasons behind them. The Ikon is usually a contemporary art gallery but put on this show due to an Ampersand Grant which allows a curator to put on their dream exhibition. The speaker took us through the beautiful contemporary responses to the work which a...