(National Portrait Gallery, London, July-October 2013)
If I was quick off the blocks with the new Elizabeth I and Her People exhibition, I was desperately slow at getting around to Laura Knight, which closed on Sunday. Having meant to go ever since it opened, the more so since the Grumpy Art Historian spoke highly of it when he went to see it back in July, I finally made it on Friday night, immediately after my Elizabeth visit.
(National Portrait Gallery, London, until 5 January 2014)
The National Portrait Gallery’s autumn exhibition is the most recent in a long line of Tudor and Stuart shows in London over the last eighteen months. It’s much smaller than most of the others: a tasting menu compared to the banquet of the Royal Collection’s In Fine Style or the sprawling buffet of the V&A’s Treasures of the Royal Courts. Its purpose is to look at the social stratification of Elizabethan England and how luxury goods such as portraits, books and fine clothing were becoming increasingly available to the lower classes – merchants, clerics, writers and gentry – as well as to royalty and nobility.
★★★½
(directed by Agnès Merlet, 1997)
I’ve set myself a little challenge: to track down as many films as I can about the lives and works of the Old Masters. Of course, I welcome any suggestions of titles I should look out for (except The Da Vinci Code, obviously), and I’m sure one or two more modern artists might slip in as I proceed.
The Art of Love and Leisure
(National Gallery, London, until 8 September 2013)
In Dutch art of the 17th century, music can have many different meanings. Performed by a family group sitting for their portrait, it might represent cultivation and refinement; or in one of the more restrained genre settings it might indicate an allegory of temperance and moderation. But these acceptable, admirable meanings could easily be subverted, for music had other meanings too. It could allude to inappropriate intimacies; it offered a rare opportunity for young men and women to be together unchaperoned; and of course music-making was an enduring symbol of lewd and loose behaviour.
(National Portrait Gallery, London, until 15 September 2013)
Wilting slightly in the glorious heat, I popped into the cool halls of the National Portrait Gallery this lunchtime, to see this year’s BP Portrait Award exhibition. As ever it was an intriguing array of styles, techniques and concepts – some of which I liked, some of which I didn’t – and, as ever, I came away with a little collection of personal favourites.
Creating the Italian Altarpiece in the Renaissance and Baroque
(Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford, until 14 October 2013)
Since I was in Oxford to see the Ashmolean exhibition, I took the opportunity to pop in to see the current display at Christ Church Picture Gallery. I’m very fond of the gallery because, despite their limited resources, they make a real effort to keep the College’s drawings accessible through a frequently changing programme of displays. The collection isn’t digitised (which is something it would be great to change, if any Oxford students are looking for a bit of volunteering for their CV?), and James Byam Shaw’s famous catalogue doesn’t illustrate all the sheets, so these displays are the only practical way to see the lesser-known drawings.
(Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, until 18 August 2013)
The Ashmolean Museum’s collection of Old Master drawings began with a bang in 1843 when the newly-fledged institution managed to acquire a group of Raphael and Michelangelo drawings from the collection of the late Sir Thomas Lawrence. Sheets by Rembrandt, Leonardo and Claude followed in 1855, as part of a bequest from the collector Chambers Hall and further Northern drawings were added in 1863 from the collection of the antiquarian and connoisseur Francis Douce. By having had the good fortune to be founded at a time when it was still possible to purchase great sheets by the Old Masters, the Ashmolean has built up one of the greatest collections of drawings in the country.
(Queen’s Gallery, London, 10 May-6 October 2013)
Before we begin, let’s get one thing clear: if you have any interest in historical costume, the Tudor and Stuart courts, or textiles, then you absolutely must see this new exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery. It’s visually glorious, with a collection of splendid portraits from the Royal Collection displayed alongside surviving examples of costume from the period; and it’s also intellectually absorbing, because it takes very familiar images and, in switching the focus from the sitter to what they’re wearing, encourages you to think about portraits in an entirely new way.
(Courtauld Institute, London, until 27 May 2013)
I haven’t left you much time to see this exhibition, but if you can get to Somerset House by the end of Bank Holiday Monday, I’d highly recommend it. The Courtauld have done again that which they do so well: choosing a very specific focus for an exhibition in order to throw new light on a familiar subject. Here they home in on one particular year in the young Picasso’s career: 1901, the year in which he came to Paris, had his first well-received exhibition at Galerie Vollard and then made his first compelling steps on the road to developing a distinctive style of his own.
Painting of the Spanish Golden Age
(Wallace Collection, London, until 12 May 2013)
Fresh from Dulwich on Sunday afternoon, I headed up to the Wallace Collection for the second instalment of my Murillo adventure. Here the exhibition is very small and, as at Dulwich, precisely focused. With one exception, it contains only pictures that were bought by the 4th Marquess of Hertford (1800-1870) in the mid-19th century and form part of the Collection. It therefore acts not only as an introduction to Murillo, but it shows us Murillo through the eyes of the 19th century, when Lord Hertford was buying his pictures at auction.
The Idle Woman 