Cathy's Art Diary

Excellent six week online course form the National Gallery looking at the history and art of the main centres in Northern Europe in the Renaissance. Jo Walton took us clearly though the period splitting the lectures geographically starting with France focusing on Paris, Dijon and the Loire, moving on to Bruges and Flanders, the court of the Holy Roman Empire, Nuremberg and Durer, London and the Hanseatic League and finishing with Antwerp. This order did take us on a rough chronology of the time as well with some overlap. In each case Walton blended the history of the area and the art it produced showing how the two often went hand in hand for example when rulers used art to promote and control their image or competed with each other to commissioned the richest and best work. She tired things together clearly so I now have a much better overview of the history of the period although I’m not sure I will ever understand the intricacies of the Hapsburgs. Despite this being a period I ...

Unusual and interesting online lecture from the National Gallery looking at the Durer’s relationship with the world outside of Europe. Jago Cooper, Director of Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, set the scene by looking at how Durer embraced new technology and ideas. He talked about how he exchanged ideas and gained knowledge leading to the print of the Rhinoceros based on first-hand accounts of them when he developed into an image of an animal he hadn’t actually seen. He moved on to look at the effect of seeing treasures from the America’s on display in the Netherlands in Durer and his descriptions of them. He did acknowledge that this wasn’t reflected in his art as it didn’t necessarily fit the religious art he was commissioned to paint. We then moved on the to art produced when the Europeans met the indigenous people in the Americas focusing on research he had done on Isla de Mona. This was fascinating. I loved the images of the galleons arriving...

Excellent exhibition at the National Gallery looking at how Durer’s travels influenced his work and the art of the artists he met on them. The show looked at his four journeys one around Germany from 1490-94, two to Venice in 1495 and 1505-07 and around the Low Countries from 1520-21. There were lots of stunning works by Durer and carefully selected works by artists he saw or met. I was pleased that I had done a short course on these journey’s as well as a curators talk so I was very excited to see the exhibition and already knew it’s narrative which helped. It was a lovely touch to include a print by Schongauer, who Durer aimed to visit on his first journey but he arrived after the artist had died, that was one of three prints by the artist that Durer himself owned. Also to see a book frontispiece of St Jerome by Durer which he was commissioned to produce to pay his way. From the two Venice trips there were some of the stunning watercolours of his journey across the Alps which ...

Interesting online lecture from the National Gallery on the life and work of Albrecht Durer. Imogen Tedbury, the curator of the upcoming show on Durer’s travels, took us through his four main journeys in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands as well as the effect those trips had on his work back in Nuremberg. It was a good talk but I had already done another one by one of the other curator’s, as well as a three-day course from Paula Nuttall. I’d hoped from the title that this was going to have a wider remit. However it was still a good talk and I’ve already booked my ticket for the show.

Marvellous online three week course from Paul Nuttall on Durer focusing on his travels in Italy and the Netherlands. I do love Paula’s clear style and great illustrations. She paces the story well and picks key pieces to make her points. This course was in preparation for an exhibition at the National Gallery later in the year and I can’t wait to go. Week one we looked at why Nuremberg was probably the only city that could have nurtured Durer at the time as it had no gild system to control the creativity of artists and which allowed him to experiment in different media. Being a centre of trade it was receptive to new ideas and it was easy for him to circulate his prints around Europe. We then talked about his travels over four years initially to meet the print maker Schongauer in Comar but sadly Schongauer died before he arrived. Durer did however learn from people who had worked with the master. He also visited the great book producing centre of Basel on his way back. Week two l...

Tantalising online lecture from the National Gallery introducing their exhibition on Durer’s travels due to open on 20 November this year. Susan Foister, the curator of the show, took us through how Durer’s journeys fitted into his life and discussed what they brought to his art and how his presence in new places influenced the artists around him. I knew about his two trips to Venice but didn’t know about his later trip to the court of the Emperor Charles V in the Netherlands. It seems that the National Gallery’s own St Jerome is going to be a pivotal work in the show but she took us through some exciting loans which will put this in context and help to illuminate other aspects of the narrative. It seems very early to have a curator’s talk on a show but I think it was originally planned for it to open about now. I can’t wait to see it in the Autumn and watch out for a number of other talks I have booked on the topic. I suspect 2021 might be the year of Durer on the blog!  ...

Innovative online lecture from the National Gallery looking at how artists have embraced science and how they have depicted it. Nick Pace took us on an interesting journey through the scientific endeavours of Leonardo Da Vinci and Durer from their studies and prints of drawing devises through their anatomical and botanical works and Leonardo’s geological studies. He then turned to the Enlightenment and in particular Joseph Wright of Derby to look at how artists of that time depicted new scientific developments. It is always good to revisit Wright of Derby’s work and it was nice to discover a new work by Jacques Louis David of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier and Marie Anne Lavoisier from The Met showing the couple with their scientific equipment.

Interesting exhibition at the British Museum looking in detail at the Arch of the Emperor Maximillian by Durer the most ambitious print ever produced in the Western world. It took three years to produce and is on 36 sheets of paper. Commissioned in 1512 the arch itself was never built but the print was used to advertise Maximillian’s achievements and copies were given as gifts to other rulers. It was wonderful to see this print properly as it is usually shown in a corridor by the print gallery as it is almost too big to exhibit. It was good to be able to stand back from it and get a good long view but also to go up close and look at all the wonderful details. I love all the figures sitting in the arches to the sides and the empty arches waiting for their spectators. No space is left undecorated or used, there are even figures peeking out from behind columns and animals investigating the bottom of the arch.

Excellent study day at the Courtauld Institute exploring the themes of their current exhibition on the drawings of the young Durer. It began with a fascinating talk by the curator Stephanie Buck, explaining why the exhibition was hung the way it was and why she felt that Durer’s travelling years were so important. Next was Kate Heard , Curator of Prints and Drawings at The Royal Collection, looking at why Durer returned to drawing the Virgin and Child so often even though these were not works for sale at the time and whether this altered with the coming of the Reformation. After lunch Mark Evans , Senior Curator of Paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum, talked about the relationship and cross fertilisation of ideas between Italy and Germany in this period. It seemed to be taken that we all knew the arguments for whether Durer himself had gone to Italy before 1506 but I had assumed this was the subject of the talk and would have liked a bit more about it. Ne...

Interesting, intellectually produced exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery looking at early drawings and prints by Durer produced in his journeyman years.   The centre of the exhibition was the Courtauld’s own double sided drawing with a wise virgin on one side and sketches of Durer’s own legs on the other. The show then looked at other works of the time of the wise and foolish virgins and on pictures in which Durer used images of himself or parts of himself. I loved the woodcut of a men’s bath house used as a way of showing the naked male body from a variety of angles and also the print of the Prodigal Son which showed every hair on the boars. I am fond of Durer so it was nice to see an exhibition concentrating on him and looking at one small period of his career. It gave a chance to see less known pictures. Reviews Guardian Telegraph

The week has gone so fast! You just get a rhythm and routine and it’s over! The morning’s lectures begin with looking at the landscape tradition in the Italian and German Renaissance. It looked at how the practice of landscape came from the Netherlands to Italy and then fed into Germany. We saw how in Germany there was a culture of representing the forest and discussed the allegory of this. The second lecture took the same area and period and looked at portraits. Again the Netherlands led the way but we looked in detail at how Venice developed this tradition. We discussed the social changes which were reflected by the growth in portrait painting. The afternoon trip was the National Gallery where we looked at the wonderful set of Cranachs there moving on to the Holbeins and the Altdorfers what may be the first landscape study in art. We then looked at the Italian side concentrating on the Titians. So what have I learn this week? Sadly that I’m not sure I like German art! I now understan...

Today was a bit different as we did the gallery bit in the morning by going to the Strang Print Room at UCL. This was fascinating as I’d never come across it before. Open to the public it givens access to UCL’s art collection including the archive of the Slade. On this course we were looking at prints by Durer and his contemporaries. It was a great chance to compare the different techniques he used wood cut, engraving and etching. I loved getting up really close to the Madonna and the monkey and seeing all the subtlety in it. The afternoons’ lectures began with Lucas Cranach taking him as a comparison to Durer and looking at why he painted I the style he did when there is evidence that he could use a finer approach. After tea we looked at the work of Grunewald, in particular the Grunewald altar piece, again as comparison to Durer.

Gosh this enjoying yourself is really tiring! Today’s lectures merged into each other either side of the coffee break. First was a talk on Gothic sculpture in Germany which was fascinating as I knew nothing about it before. It focused on the big altar pieces and looked at the difference between the polychrome and monochrome ones and why each was used. After coffee we looked at why this style continued so long in Germany and how the Renaissance style began to creep in and why. The afternoon was a trip to the new Medieval and Renaissance Galleries to look at the German sculpture there and the little bit of Venetian. We then went upstairs to look at how Durer prints had influenced design and other forms of carving.

Another really stimulating day at the Courtauld Summer school. Today’s lectures look at art in Venice when Durer arrived. It focused on the use of colour in the pictures and in particular how they used colour to create light effects. The second lecture looked particularly at Durer in Venice. It examined what the Venetian’s knew of him before he arrived. They knew his woodcuts which by this time were circulating throughout Europe. We then looked at the work he did while he was there focusing on the “Madonna of the Rose Garlands” painted for the German church. Finally we looked at what he took away from the trip. The afternoon was a visit to the National Gallery. We began with the small picture of St Jerome by Durer which I’d never really looked at before and moved onto the Venetian pictures. Although I’d looked at many of these works on the course last year this put them in a new context.

It’s so nice to be back at the Courtauld Summer School and to see old friends from previous years. This year is the Durer and Venice course lead by Dr Richard Williams. I chose it as a friend has joined me this year. He wanted to do Italian art, I wanted to do Northern so this seemed a good compromise. It’s proving to be fascinating as we bring enough visual knowledge of Venice to it but the Durer side is new and exciting. The first day’s lectures set the scene. The first looked at the background of Germany and Italy at this time and the relationship between the two. The second looked at how Durer related to the Italian renaissance before he went to Venice, what he knew about it and where he was in his career. As ever there was a gallery talk given by one of the research students. This year I opted for early medieval sculpture which was fascinating. The student (whose name I failed to get) had worked on a large Madonna and child in room 1 of the Courtauld Gallery and managed to ascerta...