Cathy's Art Diary

Excellent exhibition at the British Museum looking at life in the Roman Army. Don’t be put off by the early, obvious targeting at children, using the Horrible Histories rat. The show strikes a good balance between a clear and personal narrative, following the career of a real soldier, Claudius Terentianus, whose letters home survive, with fantastic and significant objects. Inevitably it is the small, personal items which are most engaging and moving and I loved the use of tombstones as a way of telling some of the individual stories. I also liked the use throughout of images from Trajan’s column. Favourite objects included the only surviving Roman long shield and a lovely tomb showing how they were used. I have to give a shout out for almost the last object in the show which was a hoard of coins, equivalent to the value of a soldiers pension, found in my home town of Didcot. I was moved by the bell of a mule which would have carried the goods of a cohort who shared a tent. Its...

Fascinating exhibition at the Museum of Docklands looking at the rituals around death and burial in Roman London. The displays round the edge looked in general at the rituals while in the centre twenty seven skeletons and cremated remains highlighted the points already raised. The remains were shown with their grave goods and it was fascinating to read that you find less gave goods in London than other parts of the empire as the population was quite transitory. Sounds a bit like now too. The research work done on the remains was fascinating. Most of the people showed signs of malnourishment despite the probably expense their funerals. It easy to be pulled in to viewing the bodies purely as museum exhibitions and sobering to stop and think of them as real people who lived in the same city as me. I found the show very moving. The star of the show was a sarcophagus discovered in Southwark in 2017. There was a super video with it showing its discovery, how it was opened an...

A super exhibition at the British Museum looking at the life and work of the emperor Hadrian. It made good use of the Round Reading Room again taking you on a journey through his life. There were many stunning artefacts but best of all were the statues and busts which fitting well into what I’ve been learning this week on the High Renaissance summer school at the Courtauld. The section on Hadrian’s villa was fascinating and I can really feel another trip to Rome coming on. The gallery on Antonius was interesting. He really was a very pretty boy! Reviews Times Daily Telegraph Independent Evening Standard