Cathy's Art Diary

Excellent six week online course form the National Gallery looking at the history and art of the main centres in Northern Europe in the Renaissance. Jo Walton took us clearly though the period splitting the lectures geographically starting with France focusing on Paris, Dijon and the Loire, moving on to Bruges and Flanders, the court of the Holy Roman Empire, Nuremberg and Durer, London and the Hanseatic League and finishing with Antwerp. This order did take us on a rough chronology of the time as well with some overlap. In each case Walton blended the history of the area and the art it produced showing how the two often went hand in hand for example when rulers used art to promote and control their image or competed with each other to commissioned the richest and best work. She tired things together clearly so I now have a much better overview of the history of the period although I’m not sure I will ever understand the intricacies of the Hapsburgs. Despite this being a period I ...

Fascinating online lecture from the Courtauld Research Forum looking at the effect of a wedding in 1566 on the cultural exchanges between Florence and the Holy Roman Empire. Adriana Concin led us through some of the themes of the Phd she is working on which looked at the wedding of Francesco de Medici and Johanna of Austria, how Florence   used its cultural capital to raise it’s status in the negotiations, how those negotiations led to an exchange of ideas and artistic practice and how the event introduced the courtiers of the Holy Roman Empire to Florentine art leading to them starting to collect it. I had not known anything about this and was entranced. It’s so logical that if two courts and mixing in this was that they would exchanges ideas and, just like any of us going on a holiday, how the Austrians would want to take things they had seen back home with them. Most intriguing was the idea that the artists of the day, including Vasari and Bronzino, built and decorated arc...

Surprisingly interesting exhibition at the British Museum looking at the historical and cultural influence of Germany. It took as it’s starting point how post-unification it has looked back to find a common memory and how over the years as its boundaries have changed it has constantly had to do this. I must admit I went along thinking this would be quite dull with maybe a few iconic objects but I found it fascinating to put a modern country into context. Despite having studied medieval history I’d never really thought about what the Holy Roman Empire was and how it had changed and developed over the years until the core of it has become Germany. The show told this story with objects in particularly a constant returning to currency. I loved the section which looked at cities which had been parts of the Holy Roman Empire but were now in different countries such as Geneva, Prague and Strasburg. I was also fascinated by the section which looked at the German Confederation post ...