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| Group meets at V&A entrance |
Yesterday marked the start of my participation on the City Lit course ' The history of Western art in 100 paintings' this is a 20 week course running on a roughly chronological agenda.
We met at V&A in Kensington, London a favourite to many for it's wide selection of materials and Julia the course leader (who I was on a course with this time last year) was as always organised and welcoming.
What I like about these courses is the pleasure of being part of a group visiting and talking about great works in various locations across London.
Julia has warned us that Christianity will be central to the study by virtue of its dominant nature in the location and time-frame - it is something I remain somewhat ignorant of but interested in.
The first works were not canvas based and we also looked at some 3 Dimensional items.
One of the first things we did was compare an ivory carving, The Symmachi Panel (from an elephant tusk ) to a Mosaic, it was interesting to consider how 'realism' was part of our consideration - the colour of the Mosaic had persisted but was absent from the carving (as it would have always been). |
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The Symmachi Panel (from about 400 years BC) was half of a pair that would have formed a hinged lid.
The Passions of Christ was an ivory showing some key points in the life of Jesus -another common theme through art - this by Pellegrino di Giovanni - it was useful to be able to see (by nature of the damage) how the work was made up.
Although we can see many works 'online' the actual physical manifestation is something beyond this and so it was with the Triptych of 'Master Bertram'below, as well as the biblical representations shown withing the outer doors had works on the other sides too.
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| Virgin and Child |
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| Religious Triptych |
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| Left Leaf |
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| Right Leaf |
As we moved through time the work was moire and more religiously based.
One of the works (not a painting) that we looked at and used to help us focus on 'The Saints' was The Osterley Cope.
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| A cope of Many Saints |
Boris Speaks
So I'm not sure what can be said about the speech by the man who would be leader yesterday, some of what he said was true - I don't know how history will judge this period, for me something of a Greek/Roman tragedy
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