Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating study day organised by the London Art History Society and held at Friends House focusing on the role of Sienna in Early Italian Art. This was the fourth   day in a series on this early period of Italian art and this time focused on the art of Sienna.   John Renner, the lecturer, started by look at the relationship the city had with the Virgin and the plethora of early images this produced. This followed the Battle of Montaperti with Florence in 1260 when, following the city offering the virgin the keys to the city in the cathedral, it was said that the Virgin laid a veil of mist over the battlefield the next morning leading to Sienna’s victory.  We then went on to look at Duccio’s Maesta painted between 1308-11 and commissioned by the city. He talked us through the iconography in detail and how it can be read in different directions. In the afternoon we moved on the Duccio’s successors Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti brothers who I must admi...

Fascinating study day organised by the London Art History Society and held at Friends House focusing on the role of Assisi in Early Italian Art. This was a third day in a series on this early period of Italian art and this time focused on the art of Assisi. I’d been a number of years ago and it was lovely to have this reminder of what I’d seen and it made me want to go back soon.   We went through the art chronologically with an obvious focus on images of St Francis. In the morning we looked at the art in the lower church from around Francis’s tomb from the earliest period soon after his death. This work was mainly by Maestro di San Fancesco and Cimabue. The lecturer John Renner took us through the works and talked about how these works defined the iconography of the saint. We then moved onto the Upper Church and a Giotto fest, or is it? John talked about how the earliest Frescos were by other artists from Rome such as the Isaac Master shown here. He also looked at whe...

Excellent study day organised by the London Art History Society and held at Friends House focusing on the role of Pisa in Early Italian Art. This was the second study day in the series and the first to focus on a particular city. In the morning we started by looking at the early painting from Pisa focusing on the Byzantine style of Giunta Pisano. We looked at the various styles of Crucifix and how they changed from the open eyed living Christ to the contorted dead figure and how this followed the theology of the time. We then moved on to the sculpture of Nicola Pisano and talked about how he studies Roman sarcophagi and worked out the techniques involved in them to produce wonderful pulpits. The lecturer has excellent pictures of the pulpits at Pisa and Sienna. In the afternoon we moved on to Giovanni Pisano and looked at how he developed this style having worked with his father on the Sienna pulpit and how he developed the idea of figurative tombs and how this was taken u...

First of a series of study days on Early Italian Art in the 13th and 14th centuries organised by the London Art History Society and held at Friends House. This first day was lead by John Renner and gave an introduction to and overview of the period. It’s a subject I know quite well but it’s good to hear it put into context. The first talk looked at how this art was discovered after it fell out of favour following Vasari’s great work which upheld Michelangelo and Raphael as the pinnacle of art and how early Italian art was rediscovered and championed in the 19th century. We then went on to look at the drivers for artistic creation in this period from the strong economic background, the inception and growth of the new religious orders, the Franciscans and Dominicans, and the role of art in showing civic and family importance. This was followed after lunch by a look at the techniques and forms of the art. The lecturer had good slides from the National Gallery which looked at ...