Cathy's Art Diary

Study morning at the National Gallery to compliment their exhibition “ Devotion by Design ” . It consisted of 3 excellent talks on themes from the exhibition. The first was the best by a co-curator of the exhibtion, Jennifer Sliwka, looking at the huge Sassetta altarpiece. She made you look at the work in a new way giving a lot of background on where it had been placed and introducing interesting ideas of how the side panels may work in a complex set of pairings. It made you go and look at the picture again with a fresh eye. David Ekserdjian from University of Leicester talked about narrative in altarpieces not just in the obvious pradellas but also in the embroidery on clothing or in the backgrounds. Finally there was a very different take from Ben Quash from Kings College, who looked at the different theological themes an altarpiece might reflect depending on its setting and use.

Jewel of an exhibition at the National Gallery exploring Italian altarpieces from before 1500. Although many of the pictures were familiar from the gallery’s own collection they were shown in a way which made you look at them again and see them in their original context. The first gallery looked at pictures which featured altarpieces to show how they were used in a liturgical setting. This was then backed up in the long room of the exhibition space by putting pieces with our labels on mock altars of the correct height for the picture. In particular this made the Signiorelli of the circumcision come to life and explained it’s off perspective and empty space at the bottom as is was display with a processional cross which filled the space. Reviews Times Independent Evening Standard