Cathy's Art Diary

Comprehensive and fascinating four week online course from Paula Nuttall on the Sistine Chapel. As ever with Paula the talk was clear and well thought out with good illustrations. As usual she overran gloriously! Week one we looked at the early frescos after setting the scene and looking at the design of the chapel itself. I love the frescos but never thought about how the project was co-ordinated to give a consistency across the work of multiple artists. Paula’s theory was that Perugino was the master having already been working in Rome and as he painted the most prominent frescos and the altarpiece. Week 2 we looked up to the next stage of the decoration and Michelangelo’s ceiling. I had recently done a course on the young Michelangelo with Paula so this felt like an extension of that. We looked at how the artist painted this massive undertaking from its inception to its unveiling. I was particular interested in the section on his influences. Week 3 was Raphael’s tapestries a...

Fascinating exhibition at the Royal Academy focusing on the years in the early 16th century when these three great Renaissance artists were working in Florence. I have done various courses and lectures which have covered this period and I was grateful that I had as I would have liked a bit more scene setting in the narrative and display. A roundup of what the two established artists, Michelangelo and Leonardo, had done before this point would have been useful as well as some more sense of what the city was like and where it was politically. That said, to an art history geek like me, the show was a joy, focusing on a short period of time and covering some iconic projects. I liked the contrast between the mature artists and the young Raphael who was learning from looking at their works. The first room looked at Virgin and Child works and how they were influenced by the “Taddei Tondo” owned by the RA. I liked the depth of this examination. It led into the second room which looked i...

Excellent three week online course from Paul Nutall looking in detail at the first thirty years of Michelangelo’s career. As ever Paula was very clear with excellent illustrations and quotes. Of course she ran over time but she always does and that’s part of the fun of her courses. Week one we looked at Michelangelo’s life until he left for Rome in 1496, a short period he spent in Bologna and the first few years after he arrived in Rome. We discussed how we know so much about him, what his influences were and where he might have trained, even if he claimed he hadn’t. Week two concentrated on the early masterpieces in Rome the Bacchus and the Pieta shown here then the David made on his return to Florence and the Bruges Madonna. We also looked at other work done in this period between these iconic works such at the National Gallery’s two panel paintings. Finally week three looked at his years back in Florence and in particular the battle of the battle scenes for the Palazzo Vecch...

Fascinating online discussion from the British Museum looking in detail at Michelangelo’s Epifania cartoon. Sarah Vowels and Grant Lewis, curators of the excellent exhibition “Michelangelo: The Last Decades” at the museum, introduced us to the cartoon dated from around 1550-3 and its possible iconography. They also talked about the painting based on it by Condivi which was also in the show. Art historian Daniel Godfrey then took us through the history of the cartoon after Michelangelo’s death and how it got to be in the museum’s collection. Finally conservator, Emma Turner led us through the six year conservation project with some great pictures of all the processes and explained what had been discovered during the project. All the talks added to a more rounded view of the picture and its history.

Fabulous exhibition at the British Museum focusing on the last three decades of Michelangelo’s life and career. The show was beautifully arranged with a clear narrative for a complicated subject. The labels not only told you about the image but also told you where it fitted into the story with some charming details such as the fact one picture was painted for the children of his servant, Urbino, who died. The show covered major projects, such as the Sistine Chapel “Last Judgement”, but also looked at his architectural projects and private drawings. There were sections of his friendships with Tommaso de'Cavalieri and Vittoria Colonna including a clear description of the latter’s poetry and religious beliefs. There was a good analysis of his collaboration with other artists including Marcello Venusti and Daniele da Volterra outlining how he produced drawings for them to work from. Most moving was the last section of drawings which were probably made as part of his meditative p...

Fascinating lecture at the British Museum introducing their Michelangelo exhibition. Co-curator of the show Sarah Vowles led us through Michelangelo’s career from 1534 when he returned to Rome and worked for the next 30 years.   From the drawings for the Last Judgement she took us through the drawings for Tommaso dei Cavalieri and Vittoria Colonna spending some time on the religious nuisances of the latter drawings. She also spent some time discussing the letters to his nephew Leonardo and his work with collaborators then finished by looking at his architectural work and late drawings which may be showing a less controlled hand. It was a great taster for the show and I can’t wait to go when it opens. I particularly want to see the conserved Epifania cartoon and a painting by Ascanio Condivi based on it. Stop press : I have been since so watch out for my review of it! Sorry I’m still very behind with blogging!    

Poignant series of short films on The J Paul Getty Museum Facebook pages and blog looking at some of the works in their Michelangelo: Mind of the Mast exhibition filmed in the last few hours before the museum closed due to the Coronavirus. Curator Julian Brooks talks about 11 drawings in what looks to have been a wonderful exhibition with a focus on over two dozen of the drawings but displayed with lovely large reproductions of the finished works. Brooks gives some nice insights into the works including noting that the study of a knee for the figure of Day in the Medici Chapel shows both sides of the knee even though one side in the finished figure is against the wall. I particularly liked the studies for the leg of God in the Sistine Chapel. There is a lot more information about the exhibition on the Getty website but these films demonstrate how sad it is that so many great exhibitions have had to close early. They have also brought to my attention a show I would not hav...

Magical exhibition at the Royal Academy of video installations by Bill Viola. If you follow this blog you may know I often have issues with video art but the one artist I always seem to like is Bill Viola so I was very excited to go to this show. It took me a couple of rooms to slow to the right pace. You have to give this work your attention and often it can feel like not a lot is happened then you realise that something has subtly changed which can then cause you to sit thought the film again with a different eye and to spot the moment when things change. Huge thanks to the curators for including running times in the commentaries but I’d also make a plea for some idea of how far through a work you are as I like to see a work from the start and would happily return to a room at the right time to do that. I preferred the works which were straight videos to the more installation style pieces. I loved an early work of a reflecting pool where ghostly figures appeared in t...

Small exhibition at the National Gallery bringing together their work by these three High Renaissance artists. The show didn’t do much more than display works I already know well together with a bit of an introduction. They even had their original labels and no new commentary on them to make links. The show would have been better described as “we’ve still got the Royal Academy Tondo so what more can we do with it”! Still how can I complained about seeing such iconic works together! Closes on 28 January 2017  

Interesting workshop at the National Gallery starting a season on unfinished pictures led by Chantal Brotherton-Ratcliffe. As this was the first in a series of talks the first section looked at the difference between an unfinished picture ie one which is not complete and the finish on a picture which can be described as unfinished ie loose. We then talked about why a picture might be abandoned. It might be that the artist dies while creating it and we talked about what is left in a studio. It might be that the patron changes there mind and we took Pope Julius’s tomb as an example. It might be that there is a problem with the work such as the Michelangelo Risen Christ where a fault in the marble was found where Christ’s face was going to be. And finally it might be that the work was too ambitious and was not achievable. In the second half we looked at what unfinished pictures can tell us about technique and Chantal look us through the process of painting a picture at this da...

Fantastic exhibition at the National Gallery looking at the friendship and working relationship between Michelangelo and Sebastiano del Piombo. This was a well presented and thought through show which set out the narrative clearly with good commentaries. Huge thanks to the Gallery for bringing back the booklets with the picture descriptions which really help the flow through the rooms. There was good use of letters to tell the story as well as drawings to highlight the collaboration. I was surprised at how much of Michelangelo’s work was in the show and had assumed it would just be the National Gallery’s own pictures and a few drawings. The use of the good copy of the Vatican’s Pieta was clever and it was so nice to be able to view it from all sides and see how the sides were worked. You usually view it from the front in a horrible crush of people. There was also a good collection of Sebastiano’s work including the Gallery’s own huge Razing of Lazarus with the Michela...

Small exhibition at the Capitoline Museum in Rome to mark the loan to the museum of a terracotta ‘sketch’ of two wrestlers by the Casa Buonarroti in Florence. The small sculpture was displayed in the middle of a beautiful room under heavy security. You were able to walk all the way round and study it in detail. There was a fascinating video on how it was packed and unpacked. I would have liked to see a bit more background information putting the work into context. It was displayed as a beautiful thing.

Wonderful intelligent exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery focusing on a presentation drawing called “The Dream” by Michelangelo for Tommaso de Cavaliera. It brings together a number of drawings done for Tommaso alongside leters between him and the artist. It also had different versions of the drawings and sketches for them. It was an amazing chance to see these works together. It also included drawings of the Resurrection done at the same time by Michelangelo and works which copied or were influenced by him Reviews Times Guardian Daily Telegraph Independent Evening Standard

Super lecture at the National Galley by art history poster boy Andrew Graham-Dixon. In this lecture he looked at the background to the paining of the Sistine Chapel and its iconography. Delivered in an easy popular style he wandered up and down a large slide of the ceiling pointing out different ways of looking at it. This was the first time I’d been to a Friday late night at the gallery. It’s recently changed its late night from Wednesday to Friday. I must admit I was not happy at the idea but I must say the atmosphere was great so I think it was a good move.