Cathy's Art Diary

Lecture at the British Museum which gave an introduction by the curator, Hugo Chapman,   to their current exhibition on silverpoint drawings. He gave a good description of the technique and showed us a video of how it worked. He also talked about why artists used it and the fact it was a good medium for drawing out of doors as you didn’t have to carry so much equipment. Also about how artists often used it for pictures they wanted to last as it was a medium that lasted well. For this reason it was often used for drawings which were going to be used in the studio as a model. He emphasised the fact that the show covers silverpoint in all Geographical areas not just Italy or the Netherlands. The talk really added to my experience of having just seen the show and brought out aspects of it I would not have just got from seeing it.

Wonderful exhibition at the British Museum focusing on silverpoint drawings. Name a Renaissance artist from either the North or the South of Europe and they were here! The show starts with a Botticelli from Vasari’s own scrap book of drawings and amazingly it just got even better from there! In the Italian section there were Lippi’s, the wonderful Da Vinci picture of hands, a lovely study of a monkey by Pisanello, a Gozzoli, a Ghirlandaio head of a man and drawing from the circle of Raphael. Looking north there was a Roger Van de Weyden and I’d never consciously seen a drawing by him or his studio.   I loved a picture by Petrus Christus picture of a man with a falcon with fantastic detailed fur and a lovely sense of the interior space of the room. I liked the pictures by Goltzius who seemed to use the technique for his most person pictures such as portraits of his family. My favourite picture was his of a sleeping dog which was probably his pet! As you may have reali