Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating online lecture from the National Gallery using a 15th century birth tray from their collection to discuss birth, love and marriage in the period.   Kate Devine and Marc Woodhead explained what a birth tray or Desco da Parto was ie a decorative tray used to carry food for a woman giving birth or lying in which were also used as decoration for the home. There often had pictures of mythical scenes to do with love, birth or marriage on one side and of babies or coats of arms on the reverse.   They then looked in detail at an example from the National Gallery’s collection by the workshop of Apollinio de Giovanni and Marco del Buono called The Triumph of Love from 1455-6. They explained how it was based on a poem by Petrarch and looked at how it both mirrored the story and differed from it.   In particular they discussed the two figures of black African riders which are caricatures which may represent universality or just reflect the make up of a court at the ...

Fun online talk from the National Gallery looking at predella panels in the gallery from three altarpieces. Marc Woodhead and Carlo Corsato did an excellent double act talking us through what a predella was, the base of an altarpiece which was usually decorated with small scenes to illuminate lives of the saints or stories told in the main section of the work. They started by looking at Carlo Crivelli’s Madonna of the Swallow from 1490-92. The National Gallery has the whole altarpiece, including it’s frame, so it was a good way to show us how the predella worked. They took us through two panels in particular, the St George and the St Jerome, to show us how they told a whole story in a small picture. They even told us a story about St Jerome’s lion and a donkey that I’d never heard before! They then moved on to two pictures where the gallery only has panel from the predella and not the full work using them to show how altarpieces have been broken up over the years. They looked at...

Fun online discussion from the National Gallery examining whether Giorgione’s Il Tramonto (The Sunset) should be considered a fake or a true image by the artist. The discussion was around whether so much had been added or repaired that this had now become an image which had not been imagined and devised by Giorgione. Two of the educators from the gallery, Marc Woodhead and Carolo Carsato, took opposing views to make for an interesting half an hour   with one speaking from the heart and the other analysing the science and evidence. They had great slides of the damage and how it was repaired in the 1930s when many of the stranger elements of the picture such as St George and a rather add dragon were added to hide missing areas of paint.   They talked about how the composition might have looked and at how the picture links stylistically to other by the artists. In the end   they both agreed that 88% of a Giorgione is still quite a lot and worth having!