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!

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 fifth day in a series on this early period of Italian art and this time focused on the art of Florence and in particular at the role of Giotto.     John Renner, the lecturer, started by looking art in Florence before Giotto including going thought the art and architecture of the Baptistery in some detail and works by Cimabue. We then spent a delightful hour looking at Giotto’s masterpiece, the Arena Chapel in Padua, in detail. As ever John had wonderful, high quality images which were almost better than being there! I loved the section where he went through the sequence of images of Joachim and Anna which included the beautiful detail used for this article. In the afternoon we went on to look at the work of that Giotto did in Florence from Virgin and Child pictures to the Bardi and Peruzzi Chapels in Santa Cr...

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...