Cathy's Art Diary

Moving exhibition at the British Library looking at Dunhuang in north east China which was established in 111 BCE as a military outpost and became a vital stop on the Silk Roads. Most of the documents and objects were discovered in the Mogao Library Cave. Discovered in 1900 the cave included tens of thousands of manuscripts, paintings and other objects dating from the 5th to 11th century. The show was arranged by specific, usually named, individuals who represented a type of person or an aspect the culture there such as a trader, a fortune teller and a printer. This brought the often slightly plain looking documents to life. It is a lovely companion show to the Silk Roads at the British Museum which mentions this find. The most moving exhibit is a letter found in a lost mailbag and therefore never sent, written a merchant’s wife to her husband who she had not heard from in the years. Closed 23 February 2025  

Fabulous exhibition at the British Library looking at the lives of Medieval women. I studied Medieval history at university, a long time ago, and how I wished we’d had this exhibition. It was full of wonderful stories and new people to discover. I’ve been twice now and got just as much from it the second time around. I liked the way it was divided into sections on private, public and spiritual lives. The private section looked at domestic life and had a number of displays on women’s health. Spiritual lives included nuns as well as Joan of Arc and her signature had to be one of the highlights of the show. I think my favourite section was the public one which looked at queens and what agency they had focusing on those who became regents and women as patrons of the art. There was also a display on working women such as a notary Juliet Durer from Lubeck and Alice Claver, a silk weaver in London. And my favourite object was Christine de Pisan’s “City of Women” showing women doing b...

Interesting online lecture from the Victoria and Albert Museum introducing this year’s exhibition for the Jameel Prize for contemporary art referencing or influenced by the Islamic world. The curator of the show, Rachel Dedman, gave a short outline of the prize and how it has developed over the last 15 years. She also talked about how she puts together the show and how the winner is picked by a panel of judges once the finalists are installed in the exhibition. She then led us through this years seven finalists. I have since seen the show and it was rally useful to have heard this overview. There were nuances which I missed in the show. She talked about the two themes which emerged as she worked with artists, conservation and the loss of history and ecology and spirituality.  

Excellent three week online course from Paul Nutall looking in detail at the first thirty years of Michelangelo’s career. As ever Paula was very clear with excellent illustrations and quotes. Of course she ran over time but she always does and that’s part of the fun of her courses. Week one we looked at Michelangelo’s life until he left for Rome in 1496, a short period he spent in Bologna and the first few years after he arrived in Rome. We discussed how we know so much about him, what his influences were and where he might have trained, even if he claimed he hadn’t. Week two concentrated on the early masterpieces in Rome the Bacchus and the Pieta shown here then the David made on his return to Florence and the Bruges Madonna. We also looked at other work done in this period between these iconic works such at the National Gallery’s two panel paintings. Finally week three looked at his years back in Florence and in particular the battle of the battle scenes for the Palazzo Vecch...