Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating online lecture from Birkbeck College looking at the symbolism of the vaults in the lower church of St Francis in Assisi. John Renner took us though the four faults over St Francis’s tomb possibly by Giotto linking their allegorical narrative with the theology of the Franciscan order at the time. He took us though the imagery in some detail and pointed out that the three vaults on the vows of the order all followed the same pictorial template. I love this sort of detailed analysis of images and wish we had had longer on them. Looking again as I write this I find myself looking at sections he didn’t describe and wondering what they mean. Oh dear, another place to add to the post lockdown list!

Interesting online lecture from Birkbeck looking at the role of slavery in 12th century France and Spain with particular reference to two sculptures on doorways north of the Pyrenees. Rose Walker carefully led us through various documents for the period mentioning slaves or captives then introduced us to the concept of Atlas figures from this period. She then focused on two beautiful examples from the central columns of portals to churches as Oloron-Saint.Marie and Morlaas. I found the Oloron figures, shown here, particularly fascinating for their detail and the fact they wear different clothes, one’s robe is edged in pearls and the other is embroidered. They are bound with an intricate realistic chain. They appear to be wealthy figures but are captives. Is this a literal depiction or a symbolic one? I must admit I then didn’t quite understand how Walker reached her conclusion to speculate whether these figures in fact represented the stone mason’s themselves and to wonder if ar...

Speculative and intriguing online lecture from Birkbeck as part of the their Murray Seminar series looking in detail at a triptych in the National Gallery by Giusto de Menoboi. I must admit its not a piece I was aware of, and I now can’t wait to get back and take a look as Laura Jacobson outlined its possible origins clearly and led us through a series of possible connections between the image and who it may have been made for, making the talk like listening to a fascinating story. I love this sort of art detective work and was very convinced by her argument. I loved her lively description of the imagery in the work and what made her think it was made for a specific reason, as a gift to a young girl starting her training in a convent. We tend to look at works like this with a Coronation of the Virgin flanked by saints and a stock image but she showed us how the choice of saints and narrative panels can point to a back story. I won’t give the game away as to who she concluded it ...

Delightful day organised by the London Art History Society at Birkbeck College looking at the art and design of the Art Nouveau led by Ann Anderson. The day was divided into four lectures with plentiful breaks for coffee and lunch. In the morning Ann led us through a good overview of the main motifs of Art Nouveau style with really good visual examples from different countries and in different mediums. She also talked about the different between this style and the arts and crafts movement. The second talked looked at who this art was for and how people bought the objects. I had not come across Samuel Siegfried Bing, the owner of the Art Nouveau Gallery, the Liberty’s of Paris. Ann gave us a good overview of what we might have been able to buy there. She also talked about the Paris exhibition of 1900 and how that led and influenced style. In the afternoon we looked at two producers of this period. We began with Rene Lalique focusing in particular on his jewellery. Ann ...