Cathy's Art Diary

Stimulating one day conference organised by the National Gallery at King’s College London bringing together academics and practitioners from artistic, theological and ecological backgrounds to discuss how three paintings from the gallery reflect themes of creation. The conference was the culmination of this year’s Art and Religion Research programme which had had been discussing the topic via three paintings; Rachel Ruysch’s “Flowers in a Vase” (1685), Claude Monet’s “Flood Waters” (1896) and Van Gogh’s “Long Grass with Butterflies” (1890). Although the networks are closed, they had opened this conference to a wider audience. At times I found it a bit too philosophical for me but as I typed it up I realise I had got a lot of new ideas from it and new things to think about when looking at pictures. The format of the day was three panels with two speakers on each talking about one of the pictures. The Ruysh speakers set up opposing arguments about whether the work was about extincti...

Interesting workshop at the National Gallery looking at the life and work of the Dutch flower painted Rachel Ruysch and using her to discuss the history of female artists. This was one in a series of workshop on women artists but I have only been able to get this one. It was led by Jacqui Ansell who is always good. The session began with an interesting look at why there are so few women artists represented in the National Gallery, whether this is just because there weren’t many or whether it is also because they have been forgotten by a male art historical world. We looked at the work since the 1970s to discuss this issue. We then went on to look at Ruysch’s work, how it was received in her own lifetime and what enabled her to be an artist at that time. A 75,000 gilder lottery win allowed her a certain amount of freedom in her work as she could work without money worries and take time over her work. He work was commissioned by the Duke of Tuscany which is why it is represe...