Cathy's Art Diary

Excellent online study morning from Paula and Geoff Nuttall looking at the history and art of Naples from the 13th to 15th century. Geoff started the morning by looking at the Angevin’s who ruled the city from 1266 to 1435 guiding us through the complicated order of succession covering both the early French Angevins and the later Durazzo branch of the family from Hungary and Croatia. He outlined their building work in the city and looked in particular at the patronage of the civil servants around King Ladislav. I was delighted that he spent quite a lot of time talking about the tomb shown here for Admiral Antonio Baboccio de Piperno which I had discovered a few years ago and loved but I didn’t know a lot about it. He talked us through the imagery in some detail. Paula then took over looking at the Aragonese rulers of the city from 1442 to about 1504 focusing on Alfonso I including his work to rebuild the Castel Nuovo, his commissioned of medals from Pisanello, his interest in Nor...

Confusing exhibition at the Museo Archaeologico Nationale de Napoli of photographs by Giancatlo De Luca. I say confusing as the information boards were only in Italian, which I don’t speak or read. I can’t find anything about it on their website either. The haunting works were of the derelict II Real Albergo dei Poveri, a former hospital, which the museum plans to open as an extension for the collection and were shown in one of the galleries of Roman statues from the Farnese Collection. The works were beautifully atmospheric and it would have been good to know more about them and the project. I love the museum so I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for developments. Closes 11 December 2023    

Intriguing exhibition at the Museo Archaeologico Nationale de Napoli looking at how Picasso was influenced by classical art. Picasso made two trips to Naples in 1917 and was Influenced by his trips to this museum and in particular the Farnese Hercules and Bull as well as frescos from Pompeii.   The exhibition was in the room where the two sculptures are based and cleverly wove the narrative around them. The main works by Picasso used to illustrate the influence was the Vollard Suite of prints from the 1930s and I was interested to see that they used the set from the British Museum. It was a nice touch to include a display on what the museum would have looked like in 1917. Closed 2 October 2023  

Fascinating exhibition at Galleria d’Italia in Naples on the 20th century artist Mario Schifano. Schifano roughly fitted into the Pop Art movement starting with Rothko like pieces he called Monchromes then moving on to how his was influenced by street signs and street sign painters and I loved this picture of a work in progress. The show then looked at his time in New York where he often picked on small details around him especially in Central Park and my favourite picture was this deconstructed tree. There was also a section on how he was influenced by the rise of tv.   On the lower floor were his later large works which looked great in the rather brutalist space. Closed 29 October 2023    

Fascinating online lecture from the Courtauld Research Forum examining an anonymous picture of a busy 17th century square in Naples in front of the law courts. Edward Payne of Aarhus University, Denmark outlined the start of a new research project on this picture and how violence was depicted in Naples at the time. He described some of the action in this busy picture including a man being hung by his arms outside the law courts and a crowd outside who apparently don’t seem to notice this. He gave us a quick outline of events in the city in the 17th century and how these were pictured by artists and discussed whether this new idea of painting contemporary events fell within the genre of history painting. He also talked about whether these could be classed as eyewitness accounts when they were probably painted later in the studio. Did the artists have to have seen events or could be base the picture on the stories of others and reading. He also proposed that the picture might be a...

Interesting exhibition at the Museum of Archaeology in Naples looking at sundials found at Pompeii. These were not particularly beautiful objects but they had been examined scientifically and a fascinating video showed you how a sundial could tell the time throughout the year. It showed how daylight was divided into 12 but each of those divisions of 12 was a different length depending on the time of year. It had been discovered that some must have been ornamental and brought from other places as they would not calibrated to work in Pompeii. There was one made specifically made for Pompeii. I also loved one from the bath house which had been used to regulate sessions at the complex. It was nice touch to display the Farnese Atlas, a Roman copy of a Greek work showing Atlas bearing the world on his shoulders, at the centre of the room. It shows a high level of astronomical knowledge and records discoveries made in the same period that it was made. 

Fascinating exhibition at the Archaeological Museum in Naples looking at how the news and information about the discoveries at Herculaneum and Pompeii were recorded and circulated from their discovery to the invention of photography. Having been to Pompeii two days before we did this exhibition in filled in the gaps between the then of what we saw and the now of us experiencing it. I’d also done a course last year on classicism and this illuminated a lot of the points made on it about the re-emergence of classical style in art and architecture when these cities were discovered. I loved seeing the notebooks of the engineers who discovered Herculaneum when preparing a site to build a royal villa. They included Jakob Weber’s survey of the Villa of the Papyri. Some of his notes are the only record we have of sites as in digging them they were destroyed. They also had an early notebook showing the finds shown alongside the finds themselves and Francois de Paule’s first overall ...

Delightful exhibition at Museo di Capodimonte of works by Paolo La Motta in response to the museum’s collection. “Sensitive Encounters” seems to be a series of shows inviting contemporary artists to respond to the works in the museum. In this show works from the collection next to the works by the artist which they inspired. One painting Bambina, was like a modern Veronica picture with the figure holding a blank piece of material. I loved a series of exquisite portraits of a boy alongside a sculpted head. It turned out the boy was called Genny who was sadly he was killed in a gang fight five years later which added an extra layer of poignancy to this lovely work. Closes on 30 October 2018

Interesting exhibition at the Museo di Capodimonte which invited ten ‘ideal visitors’, intellectuals, artists, collectors and entrepreneurs to curate a room each at the museum using items from the collection. In essence it was a way of showing this fabulous collection in a different formation to make people think again about the works. Each of the curators had carte blanche to choose 1 -10 works. I’d love to have known the order in which they chose their work and whether there were any arguments! The rooms which stood out were the architect Paolo Pejrone’s room of landscapes which included a gold frame around the window with its view over Naples, the neurologist Laura Bossi Regner’s room of pictures which included monkey’s as we share 93% of our DNA with monkeys and contemporary artist Franceso Vezzilo’s room of sculpture busts shown in pairs settling up a dialogue between them. Closes on 9 December 2018

Lovely installation at the Pio Monte Della Misericordia in Naples of a new piece by Olivero Rainnaldi to compliment the Caravaggio “Seven Acts of Mercy” whose chapel it shares. The work consisted of eight white stylised figures standing on their heads on top of very tall poles in a circle. They pointed towards the dome of the small chapel just yards from the Caravaggio which we had gone to see. The chapel is in a confraternity building and your first view of the Caravaggio and this work is from the choir gallery overlooking the chapel in the main building. From there the figures look like they are diving into the space and you see the wonderful painting though this white circle. As you can gather from the above I loved this work but it was only since I got home that I’ve read what it was about. It represents a proposed eighth act of mercy, being merciful to one’s self.   It takes its inspiration from the flame in the picture seeing it as a symbol of the Spirit. It was ...

Small exhibition at the Christchurch Gallery in Oxford which looked at the role of drawing in Spain and Naples in the 17th century. It discussed the connections between the 2 geographical areas where drawing is rare because it was not seen as essential to the growth of artistic ideas. There were many lovely works including Ribera’s St Irene which was the star of the show. I loved a picture by Preti of the Vision of St Anthony where he had offered the patron two versions of picture via stuck on flap on paper giving him a chance to choose his tabernacle.