Cathy's Art Diary

Excellent online lecture from ARTscapades on Hans Holbein the Younger. The author of a new biography of Holbein, Elizabeth Goldring, was in conversation with Michael Prodger of the New Statesman, to bring out the highlights of her book. I was fascinated to hear how Goldring went about her research given that Holbein left no diaries or letters. The only source material from him are a dictated will and notes on his drawings. Instead she turned to his patrons’ archives such as the letters of Erasmus. I liked her description of these as adjacent works. She talked about how Holbein’s portraits have become our view of Tudor England and how she can’t image Tudor art or history without him. However she also talked about other works by him from before he came to England, in particular his portraits of Erasmus which his workshop continued to produce in Basle even after he’d moved to England. She also mentioned his design work including armour for Henry VIII and over 200 pieces of jewell...

Interesting online lecture from the Foundling Museum discussing an image of John Blanke, a black trumpeter at the court of Henry VIII. Michael Ohajuru introduced us to Blanke who is the first person of black African descent for whom we have a historical record and an image. He explained how black trumpeters where not new but had been known in the Holy Roman Empire and took us through some images of them. He then led us though the “Great Roll of the Tournament at Westminster in February 1511” explaining what the event was and how it was depicted. In particular he pointed out the two images of Blanke. Finally he looked at the documentary evidence we have on Blanke including records of him playing at Henry VII’s funeral and Henry VIII’s coronation. The talk was a great example of using images and documents together to give a insight into history.

Excellent online lecture from the National Gallery looking at art from the Tudor period. Aliki Braine interviewed Christina Farady, author of a book of the same title as the talk, as part of the Members’ Book Club series. Faraday explained how the Tudors hit a sweet spot in research terms and in the popular culture as they are strange enough to be a mystery but close enough for us to be able to find out more. She said the monarchs are iconic and identifiable “like face cards in a deck of cards”. She explained how she hopes the book fills a gap as she covers both paintings and objects and looks at art not just for the court but also for the newly rising middle class or Middling Sort. She explained the objects were more valuable than paintings at the time and had the advantage of being portable. She used this portrait of Margaret Beaufort to point out the sort of valuable objects they owned. Faraday also pointed out that the country wasn’t as isolated as we tend to think and talke...

Interesting exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery looking at portraits painted of the Tudor monarchs in their own life times to try to strip down the layers of myth which built up around the images. It was nice that commentary on each monarch included written descriptions of them from the time and that objects owned by them were included. It was also good to see the conservation work which had been done before this show and to see what had been learnt from it. There were two portraits by Master John in the show. I knew the one of Mary but had not seen the Edward VI one before. He was a wonderful artist with a lovely clear view of the world. I also liked the head of Henry VII by Torrigiano which gave a sense of having the king in the same space as us and it was nice to be able to compare it to the classic portrait of him. The last room looked at how the images had been reproduced after their deaths and snuck in a picture of Lady Jane Grey who had ruled so briefly...

Fascinating exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery looking at the history of Tudor and Stuart dress through pictures and objects in the Royal Collection. In each section there were information boards explaining the men and women’s fashion in a particular period, labeling all the main features and explaining how things had changed since the previous board. These were then surrounded by pictures, documents and items of clothing. There were also good explanations on the audio tour of how the clothes worked and how they were kept clean. It was fascinating to see how people were pinned, tied and sewn into their clothes each day. It must have taken ages to get ready and the clothes must have been so heavy and uncomfortable. I also loved the fact that the labels pointed out major pieces of jewelry and told you which other pictures they had appeared in. I was amazed at two portraits of Frances Stuart, one a classic Lely Windsor Beauty portrait, the other of her dresses as a man! E...