Friday 13th May 2011 - A Renaissance  Evening at the National Gallery:

 

 On Friday 13^th May, five of us took advantage of the free events linked to the Renaissance at the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square.  Maggie renewed her interest in life drawing with the drawing class held in the Sainsbury Wing lecture theatre.  She said that they were very concerned that if the audience were unaware what life drawing meant, they needed to widen their experience.  By the time the class was due to start, everyone knew there were to be nude models on stage.  I suppose it is something to do with Health & Safety, but we were all surprised that some old fashioned standards still apply.  Well done Maggie, and thank you for showing us your sketches – when time allows, I do hope you will be picking up your pencils and brushes again soon. 

Jane visited the Gossaert exhibition, which she found ‘glorious’.  I agree.  This artist is not much known today except by a few and this exhibition, and the various study days and lectures, have helped bring his work to a wider audience.  Gossaert was extremely influential in bringing certain elements of the Italian Renaissance to Northern Europe and, for those interested in Northern Renaissance art, certainly calls for closer examination.

Elaine, Hilary and I joined the themed guided tour of the Gallery’s Renaissance collection.  Needless to say, there were far more people than expected.  Lurking in the foyer of the Sainsbury Wing were two guys;  one held a camera and the other a sound boom, which looked exceedingly like a feather duster!  This was a film crew from Sky Arts and they were filming the evening for broadcast on Friday 3^rd June.  The curators asked that the group split into 2 and I gave Hilary and Elaine no choice and I hoiked them into the group with the camera and the sound boom.  My thinking being that this group would be the smaller of the two and, therefore, we would be able to see and hear what was being said.  I was correct as most of the audience did not wish to end up on film.  I was reminded of what Warhol said about everyone being famous for 15 minutes and wondered if this might be our 15 minutes.

Our National Gallery curator was a lovely girl who kept her cool whilst delivering a lecture on how the Renaissance came about to an audience of approx 50, random members of the public drifted past, walked in front of and behind her, mobile phones went off, whilst having a camera team filming her every word. 

Our guide started with an explanation of when the Renaissance roughly started.  She took the date of 1400, but you will find many other dates and some as early as the mid 1200s.  Personally, I use 1350 which is just after the Black Death, as a starting point.  We first looked at the work of the Sienese painter, Lorenzo  Monaco’s Coronation of the Virgin, painted c 1407 -9.  This shows how the artist was responding to the ‘new’ concept of perspective.  

This painting is a smaller version of the altarpiece for the main Church of the Camadolese  monastery (now destroyed) of San Benedetto fuori della Porta Pinti, Florence, where Lorenzo Monaco was a monk.  You can find it in Room 53 of the Sainsbury Wing.

 This is painted using egg tempera on wood and we learnt how difficult this medium is to use.  The ground pigment is mixed with egg yolk, which binds the pigment together.  Water is used to thin the paint as the egg yolk thickens whilst it is exposed to the air.  Not only are the pigments often highly toxic, such as the red colour vermillion which comes from a mercuric ore called cinnabar, the paint had to be built up in tiny brush stokes  as it dries immediately on contact with the painting surface.  I was struck by how the shadowing is very similar to that used by the monks who illuminated ancient texts, so I was not surprised to learn later that it is thought that Lorenzo Monaco could have been responsible for some of the illuminated manuscripts of that order from the of the early 15^th century  now held in the Florentine Laurentian library.

To show how the use of perspective had advanced in just a few years, we then looked at the much smaller work of Masaccio's Madonna with Child & Angels, which hangs next to the previous example. 

Masaccio has grasped the theory of perspective and makes a far more convincing statement regarding space and three dimensional illusion.  He too has used egg tempera on wood, but his technique is far more realistic with deep shadows creating a three dimenional illusion.  The monumental throne is now 'real' and convinces us that she is seated on a substantial stone throne.

The whole concept of narrative and emotion would have been alien to the early Renaissance painters, but by this time was absolutely necessary for any artist to be able to convey any subject convincingly.

Having viewed three paintings that encapsulate the Florentine influence on the Renaissance, we then proceeded to Room 12  where we saw Titian’s Bacchus & Ariadne.  Painted in 1520 this is one of a series commissioned from Titian, Dosso Dossi, and Bellini, for Alfonso D’Este, and which hung on the walls of the Camerino D’Alabastro (the Alabaster Room) of the ducal palace in Ferrara.  

Here we see the influence of classical literature, and in particular that of Ovid.  This painting tells the story of how Bacchus comes across Ariadne, who is turning away from the impetuous (naked) youth leaping at her from his chariot.  She has been asleep and woken to find that  her lover, Theseus, has deserted  her, leaving her alone on the island of Naxos.  You can see Theseus’s ship sailing away at the left hand edge of the painting, just above Ariadne’s left shoulder. 

Bacchus’s retinue of party loving followers includes the Trojan high priest of Poseidon, Laocoon, who, during the Trojan war, warned the Trojans against taking the wooden horse left by the Greeks into the city.  It is he who is responsible for the saying, ‘do not trust the horse, Trojans, beware of Greeks bearing gifts, which is a loose translation of the Latin quote Equo o credite, Teucri/Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.  For this warning, the goddess Athena, who supported the Greeks, blinded him and then sent two giant snakes to strangle his two sons. 

Now you might wonder why Titian has included this character in the happily carousing crew that follow the god, Bacchus.  The answer is relatively simple.  Titian is making a topical reference to an ancient classical statue unearthed in Rome in 1506.  Now we see how the subject of painting was broadening to include classical myths and legends because here we have two legendary human figures – Ariadne and Lacoon, and a whole train of mythological beings. 

One of our group was a young lad who sat crossed legged at the front, listening to everything our guide had to say about each painting.  When she came to this one she asked the audience what we thought had happened to Ariadne, to which the young lad replied, “she was dumped by her boyfriend.”  Needless to say we all laughed at his encapsulation of the poor girl’s plight. 

With a few minutes remaining, we had time to have a quick look at a late Titian – The Death of  Actaeon, painted in about 1562 for Philip II of Spain.  The hunter Actaeon has come across the goddess of the hunt, Diana, at her bath with her nymphs.  Diana (also goddess of the moon) is extremely annoyed and shoots the young Actaeon with a magic arrow, which turns Actaeon into a stag.  His own hounds, bring him down and kill him because they no longer recognise their master. 

We cannot see the arrow or the string to the bow.  Why?  Because Titian has omitted them in order to  create atmosphere within the narrative.  This is the precise moment that the arrow has been fired and the string is still vibrating therefore rendering it invisible.  The brushwork reminds a modern audience of that of the 19^th century Impressionists – look at how the lake reflects the light of the moon.  The movement and tension is now as important as the  narrative and we feel, as much as see, the story of  Diana intent on punishing the hapless hunter, and experience the moment of his grisly fate.

Whilst we were enjoying this hour exploring these paintings, children were learning some of the stories behind some of them.  The classical literary works of Ovid and Catullus were often used as inspiration for many of the Renaissance artists and, as a student of art history, I was glad I had studied Greek and Roman mythology at school.  Revisiting Ovid’s Metamorphoses (in translation I would add) as an adult has been an adventure.  His Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)  was not something we studied at school; presumably its erotic nature was not considered suitable for students of The Jersey College for Girls!  However, I cannot see there would be a problem for today’s school audience as there is far worse than this ancient soft porn out there on the Internet.  On our way back to the Sainbury Wing we passed groups of children sitting mesmerised in front of Old Master’s as the curators brought images to life by telling the story behind the painting, which was no doubt suitably edited for such a young audience.

Afterwards Hilary, Elaine and I enjoyed a glass of pink fizz in the foyer of the Sainsbury Wing and listened to a singer with a beautiful voice, accompanied by a lutist, performing various English Renaissance songs. 

These guided lecture tours are very accessible to anyone and I would recommend anyone to take one if they have the opportunity.  They are pitched for an audience who might know a bit, yet also provide information for those who are more knowledgible.  There are tours daily and you just have to ask at the information desks to find out when.  We are lucky to have many of the world experts here in London and the study workshops are well worth attending.  The National Gallery is open late every Friday and the NG website www.nationalgallery.org.uk  has the programme of forthcoming events under their section of What’s On.  If you are on your way home on a Friday night and just want to wind down with a glass of wine or champagne, why not drop in and enjoy our wonderful national collection.

Tune in to Sky Arts 2 on the evening of Friday, 3^rd of June when they will be broadcasting a programme featuring the National Gallery and Museums at Night – you might just see some people you know.