Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating exhibition at the British Museum on the history and art of Sicily focusing on the Greek and Norman periods. This was a well set out and explained exhibition and I loved the inclusion of large scale photographs of the main sites to give you a real sense of being there. Like the Sunken Cities show though the show was stolen by some stunning objects. In the Greek section was a pottery basin on a stand from 1400BC that you could have put in your garden now it was so perfect. This was near to a near perfect flat gold bowl with bulls on it. I loved the gorgon head gable end and think we need to revive them. Most intriguing was the section on the cult of Persephone and the female ceremonies which seemed to involve lots of alcohol and piglets! I loved the little statues of goddesses with small pigs! Book me in! I loved the Norman section as I had studied this at A Level. I hadn’t realised that a lot of the original palace still existed. I was interested to se...

Second plenary lecture for the Courtauld Summer School given by Professor Eric Fernie who is a previous director of the Courtauld and architectural historian. It traced the geographical boundaries of the Latin Church in this period and how external factors influenced the architecture on the North. South, East and West edges. Must admit after a week of the school I found this possibly one lecture too far. I think it is something which might be quite interesting to go back and read at a later date. As I was tired I was getting my Eastern and Western influences a bit muddled.