Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating workshop at the National Gallery looking at the portraits of Lorenzo Lotto . This day, led by Caroline Brooke, was a good compliment to the current exhibition. She began by looking at what we know about Lotto’s life. She looked at why he traveled so much and how he picked up the styles of the cities he worked in. She also looked at some of his altarpieces as it was these commissions which brought him to the cities and it was while there that he then picked up the portrait work. She also pointed out that he wouldn’t have had a workshop because of his travels and would have to have found new artists in each city to work with him. We then put Lotto’s work in the context of other Renaissance portrait work. We talked about the importance of portraiture in Venice, where he trained, and the influence of Flemish art on his work. We also spent time in the exhibition with a list of questions to consider when looking at the pictures and were encouraged to discuss ...

Fabulous exhibition at the National Gallery of portraits by Lorenzo Lotto. The show took you through Lotto’s life and travels around Italy and put him in the context of the time. I got the impression of a good artist who realised that he couldn’t compete with Titian in Venice so spread his net further to the outlying cities and carved out a steady career. You often come across his pictures in Renaissance shows and are always impressed by them but he is even more impressive when the work is seen together. I liked the way the portraits were shown with some of the types of objects the figures are holding which emphasised the symbolism of the work. I loved seeing a contemporary dress shown with one of the pictures so you understood how the clothing worked. Also to see a statue that may be the actual one in one of the pictures. It was fascinating to see a portrait with its cover as well as a frame which would have taken a cover. We often forgot that some of these pictures we...