Music in Art Part II: At Court

Beautiful lecture at the National Gallery looking at how music was depicted in art in the Renaissance focusing on the role of the courts.

I had enjoyed the first part of this series of talks so was pleased I could make the second and have how now booked the third. Belle Smith started with this painting by Lorenzo Costa from the gallery's collection and talked us though the instruments shown and the fact the subjects are singing. I know the picture well but had never thought about how the outer figures are tapping along to the music on the table. The lecturer for the next talk was in the audience and as a lute player he brought fascinating insight into the how the instrument is being played here, with figures rather than a quill plectrum, and how that was a new development at the time.

The talk diverted a bit with the self-portraits of Lavina Fontana and Sofonisba Anguissolo who are both shown playing a spinet emphasising their ladylike status and intellect but his led to a discussion of them as artists.

We then talked about Caravaggio's "The Musicians" from c1595 and how it reflects his origins as a still-life painter but adding in the sensuous elements which appealed to his patrons in Rome before going back in time to Justus of Ghent's personification of music for the Duke of Urbino.

As ever it was lovely to hear about paintings then to go and see some of them in the flesh.



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