Cathy's Art Diary

Comprehensive online lecture from the National Gallery looking at the life and work of Velazquez. Jo Walton led us clearly through the subject with excellent illustrations and an emphasis on works owned by the gallery itself. She started with his early street work which I love and talked about the symbolism in it as well as emphasising the delightful still-lives he included. We then talked about how he went to Madrid and became the court painter and we looked in detail at the work he did for them. Alongside this we looked at his mythical and historic works as well, of course, looking in more detail at the Rokeby Venus and Las Meninas.

Charming installation at Museo Archaeologico Nationale de Napoli of works by Manoli Valdès. The works were life sized sculptures based on the Spanish Infanta in Las Meninas by Velazquez. Picasso was also influenced by the painting and did a series of works riffing on it so this complimented another exhibition about him in the museum. They looked beautiful in the space but would have had more effect if there had been less information boards in the impressive space, the Meridian Hall, to detract from them. I loved this quote in the explanation “Does Valdés cite these "old masters" as a reference or a memo, or does he regard them as a battlefield for his own pictorial exploration?”. What an interesting idea! Again there is nothing on the museum’s website about this show despite lots of advertising of it within the building. Closes 6 January 2024    

Excellent online lecture from the National Gallery on the Rokeby Venus by Velazquez. Fiona Alderton talked about where the picture sat in Velazquez’s career and about likely inspiration for it from the Spanish royal collection including the Titian’s Poesie and works by Rubens. She then looked at it’s composition and in particular discussed the role of the mirror in the picture. Is it a commentary on aging? Is the woman actually looking at us via the mirror? She then talked about wo might have commissioned the work as it was actually to paint or own nude pictures at the time in Spain. She talked about how it was owned later by Manuel de Godoy who also owned Goya’s naked and clothed Maya before being bought by John Morritt of Rokeby Hall. She finished by talking about how the National Gallery bought the picture via a fund raising campaign and the incident in 1914 when it damaged by the suffragette, Mary Richardson, and the public reaction to that.    

Interesting online talk from the Wallace Collection discussing the relationship between the work of Velazquez and his main pupil Juan Bautista Mazo. The speakers, Natalia Muñoz-Rojas, The Wallace Collection and Patricia Manzano Rodríguez, Zurbarán Centre for Spanish and Latin American Art, Durham University, in conversation discussed what we know of Mazo’s life and art. I hadn’t thought I knew any Mazo works but realised during the talk that I did, I just hadn’t realised it, for example the National Gallery have portraits of Mariana of Spain and Don Adrian Pulido Pareja. They talked about Mazo’s role as a copyist, which we now tend to look down on, but he was prized at the time for his copies of Velazquez’s great portraits of the Spanish royal family which everyone wanted to own. He also copied the great masters from the royal collection as noble families wanted to have their own versions. I will certainly pay more attention to 17th century Spanish works in galleries and not dis...

Charming talk at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival by two novelists who had written novels about artists. The event was a well chaired discussion  between the authors,  led by Nicolette Jones,  bringing out the reasons they wrote the books and their different approaches. This made it much more dynamic that just each talking about their own book in isolation. They had obviously each read and enjoyed the others books which led to a good conversations. Amy Sackville talked about “Painter to the King” about Velazquez at the Spanish Court. She said she started by wanting to invent a court painter at a Baroque court as a painter is an observer plus she wanted to use the world of Jacobean plays. In the end she felt she just kept inventing Velazquez so just used him! Elizabeth Macneal talked about “Doll Factory” a novel based in the world of the Pre-Raphaelites but using imagined main characters. She said she began by looking at the famous p...

Super course at the National Gallery looking at  Velazquez’s Rokeby Venus led by Karly Allen one of the National Gallery lecturers. The structure of the course was excellent setting the painting in its historic context looking at what Velazquez was doing at this time and where has was in his career as well as who owned the painting over the years. We then went to sit round the picture itself and look at its finish and get an idea of our own emotional responses to it. After a quick coffee we put this picture in its art historic context looking at other reclining female nudes plus the genre of Venus at her toilet. I particularly enjoyed this section as I am fascinated by how artists are influenced by earlier generations. It was also strange to think of Rubens and Velazquez going round the Spanish royal collection together looking at the Titians. There was then a session on responses to the picture since it entered the public domain n 1906 including the attack by a suffrage...