Continuing our series looking at great paintings housed in London's National Gallery... Bellini’s Doge Leonardo Loredan is a commanding portrait in two senses: the subject has an unmistakably authoritative presence; and, like the Arnolfini Portrait, the painting hogs viewers’ attention in its room (62, in the Sainsbury Wing). It has in common ... Read More...
Painting
Continuing our series looking at great paintings housed in London's National Gallery... The National Gallery has thirteen Raphaels (if you include the dubious Madonna of the Pinks, recently 'saved for the nation'). The one that always draws me towards it is the Mond Crucifixion (in Room 8). There's something about the sheer ... Read More...
For a Burns Night special, we take a break from London's National Gallery and head to Edinburgh in our series looking at artistic national treasures... The Skating Minister or, to give it its full title, The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch (c.1795) is a much-loved painting, and indeed, who could fail ... Read More...
Continuing our series looking at great paintings housed in London's National Gallery... For such an intimately and widely known painter it's amazing how the works of Vincent Van Gogh retain the ability to make you look again, even when seen on screen. Even his landscapes and still lifes remain gripping. In ... Read More...
Continuing our series looking at great paintings housed in London's National Gallery... The National Gallery is not short of big, attention-grabbing showpieces, but there are also small, unassuming pictures that can stop you in your tracks and compel your attention just as effectively. One that I often return to is this still ... Read More...
Continuing our series looking at great paintings housed in London's National Gallery... When you enter room 56, tucked away in the farthest reaches of the Sainsbury Wing, chances are there’ll be a cluster of visitors obscuring your view of The Arnolfini Portrait. You might feel a bit sorry for the room’s ... Read More...
Continuing our series looking at great paintings housed in London's National Gallery... A rather racy pair of treasures this week. Hilaire-Germaine-Edgar Degas (1834-1917) is considered to be one of the founders of Impressionism (he exhibited with Monet et al) but in fact he rejected the label – calling himself a ‘Realist’ – ... Read More...
The Dabbler continues its Teutonic theme today with the inimitable Malty's response to Andrew Graham-Dixon's major new BBC Four series The Art of Germany... Recently launched was Andrew hyphen Dixon's new series on German art, many of the usual suspects of the period were included, many not. As an educator he is less ... Read More...
Nige continues our series looking at great paintings housed in London's National Gallery... The National Gallery is not short of fine Venetian paintings, having a clutch of great Titians (including the ruinously over-restored Bacchus and Ariadne), and glorious Veroneses and Tiepolos, all full of sumptuous colour, painterly verve and joie de ... Read More...
How do you make photos without a camera? Well, at the heart of Shadow Catchers – the V&A’s beautifully-presented show of camera-less photography – is a video in which the five featured artists explain how. They variously call their works ‘photograms’, ‘luminograms’ and ‘chemigrams’, but essentially the idea is to create images ... Read More...
