Cathy's Art Diary

Useful online lecture from the National Gallery on the life and work of 16th century Venetian artist, Veronese. Sian Walters led us through the artists career with an emphasis on work in the National Gallery and excellent illustrations. She talked about how he fell out of fashion and how when the gallery proposed buying “The Family of Darius Before Alexander” in 1857 the purchase was discussed in Parliament and he was described as “second rate”. We discussed how he differed from his contemporaries Titian and Tintoretto as well as his collaboration with the architect Palladio on the decoration of palace and villas in and around Venice. The talk emphasised the range of his work from large frescos for monastery refectories to portraits of the merchants of the city and their wives.

Charming installation at the Academia Gallery in Venice of Murano glass over the last hundred years. The pieces by over 100 makers was set out on a long banquet table in front of Veronese’s “Feast at the House of Levi” which features 16th century glass at a biblical banquet. There were some beautiful pieces, some reflecting the styles in the painting, and some more modern pieces. My favourite was this wine glass with no stem with nestles in another vessel when you put it down. Closed 3 November 2024

Innovative installation at the National Gallery using virtual reality to set a painting by Veronese into context. As you may know I don’t like virtually reality exhibits but having heard a talk on this one I decided to give it a try and it is one of the best I’ve done. It placed the painting back in the chapel for which it was painted and as it would have appeared at the date it was unveiled. You felt as if you were in that space with a soundtrack of monks chanting and the ambient noise of the space. You could choose from being introduced to the work by an avatar of the curator or a dialogue between the abbot who commissioned it and a monk from the order. It only lasted about ten minutes which is probably long enough to be in a virtually created world. The experience was nicely managed by the staff with good explanations of how the head set worked and good advice to glasses wearers like me. Once in the room there was a one to one ratio of staff to punters to keep it safe. It ...

Useful and interesting online lecture from National Gallery introducing their Veronese virtual reality experience. Rebecca Gill, the curator of the exhibition and Lawrence Childs, Head of Digital Services at the gallery took us through the reasons for commissioning this work and the process by which it was made. The project aimed to put Veronese’s “The Consecration of St Nicholas” digitally back into the chapel for which it was commissioned. Gill explained the context of the picture and the story they were trying to tell. She covered its commissioning by a monastery known for its Lutheran tendencies, how it was removed in the Napoleonic wars and how the chapel had changed over the years. They then discussed the processes of scanning the chapel and how they investigated changes which needed to be made to get the space back to when the picture was unveiled in 1562. They talked about finding a suitable new frame to add digitally and how in doing that they revealed a circular window...

Delightful seminar looking at the current Veronese exhibition at the National Gallery given by Colin Wiggins, a curator of special exhibitions at the gallery. This was a fascinating mix of the life of Veronese and a look in detail at some of the works in the show. There were some great close ups of details of pictures and much talk of how Veronese loved the ‘stuff’ of painting, the paint, the colour, the canvas etc and however much of illusion he created he never let you forgot it was done with pain. Colin gave lovely descriptions of the work but had to stop himself using the word gorgeous yet again at one point! He also shared my love of Veronese’s dogs! Colin was also fascinating as he puts on shows by contemporary artists at the gallery and talked a lot about how Veronese influenced contemporary art. I would never have seen this for myself but he had some good examples of very abstract Bridget Riley which followed a Veronese colour pallet and pattern form. He also talke...

Fabulous exhibition at the National Gallery looking at the work of Veronese. I was so looking forward to this show and I was not disappointed! It was a good old fashioned show and I see that as a good thing. It concentrates on one artist and their career in chronological order. It mentions the other artists of the time but does not take up space with their work. Because of it being at the National Gallery if you want to make the comparison with Titian or Tintoretto you just have to head to the next gallery when you’ve finished. I loved the fact that the commentary on the works was in the small leaflets so people did not queue up to read a label or bunch around them. I’d also recommend the tape tour which added a lot more particularly the comments by an opera designer and costume historian. Veronese came across as an artist who really understands the human condition partially the happier aspects of it. He shows the happiness of people dressing up in their best clothes ...

Small exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery bringing together sections of an altarpiece by Veronese from the Italian town of Lendinara. One piece is owned by Dulwich but the others are spread between the National Gallery of Scotland, the National Gallery of Canada and the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas. The exhibition showed how the pieces had been retouched to make the sellable and to erase the St Michael and the Devil from the middle section. Following cleaning this was rediscovered and the head of St Michael rediscovered in Texas. As you may realize from previous blogs I like exhibition which bring works back together which have been split up so I found this fascinating. Reviews Independent

Talk at the National Gallery in their “Wine, Nibbles and Talk” series given by Norman Coady. This was an interesting talk concentrating on the use of colour in Veronese but also looking at its comparisons to music. The speaker, a free lance art historian, made some fascinating and witty comparison between opera singers and artists of this period likening Titian to Maria Callas and Veronese to Joan Sutherland. There was much talk of how Veronese used colours against each other and to provide rhythm to a picture. I must admit for me the wine and nibbles element of the talk was a bit superfluous. It was not a particularly social environment. I had hoped for a more seminar style approach given the difference in price to the usual lecture ticket.