National Gallery
Artemisia, National Gallery review - worth the waitMonday, 05 October 2020
It takes nerve to throw a shadow across the face of your heroine, still more to banish to the margins the severed head that might so easily dominate the painting’s centre ground. Instead, in imagining the aftermath of Judith’s beheading of... Read more... |
Nicolaes Maes: Dutch Master of the Golden Age, National Gallery review – beautifully observed vignettesThursday, 05 March 2020
A young woman sits sewing (pictured below right: Young Woman Sewing,1655). She is totally immersed in her task, and our attention is similarly focused on her and every detail of her environment. The cool light pouring though the window illuminates... Read more... |
The Best Exhibitions in LondonThursday, 30 January 2020
Picasso and Paper, Royal Academy ★★★ A fascinating subject that proves too unwieldy for a single exhibition. Until 13 Apr Rembrandt's Light, Dulwich Picture Gallery ★★★★ A novel collaboration between curators and cinematographer Peter... Read more... |
Gauguin Portraits, National Gallery review - me, myself and ITuesday, 08 October 2019
“Gauguin was undoubtedly self-obsessed” begins the National Gallery’s latest dead cert blockbuster, as it cheerfully hijacks a de facto series begun next door at the National Portrait Gallery. Unlike Picasso and Cézanne, Gauguin is not known for his... Read more... |
Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light, National Gallery review - a national treasure comes to LondonFriday, 26 April 2019
The National Gallery is on a roll to expand ever further our understanding of western art, alternating blockbusters dedicated to familiar and bankable stars, with selections of work by lesser known figures from across the centuries. Last year for... Read more... |
Sea Star: Sean Scully, National Gallery review - analysing past mastersTuesday, 23 April 2019
Either side of a doorway, framing a view of Turner’s The Evening Star, c. 1830 (Main picture), Sean Scully’s Landline Star, 2017, and Landline Pool, 2018, frankly acknowledge their roots. Abstract as they are, Scully’s horizontal bands of... Read more... |
Edwin Landseer / Rachel Maclean, National Gallery review - a juxtaposition of oppositesTuesday, 04 December 2018
Familiarity breeds contempt, which makes it difficult to look at Edwin Landseer’s The Monarch of the Glen (pictured below). The reproduction of this proud beastie on T-towels, aprons, jigsaws and biscuit tins blinds one to the subtle nuances of the... Read more... |
Mantegna and Bellini, National Gallery review - curated for curatorsMonday, 08 October 2018
Pitched as “a tale of two artists”, the National Gallery’s big autumn show promises a history woven in shades of friendship and rivalry, marriage and family, privilege and hard graft. Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini were brothers-in-law,... Read more... |
Monet and Architecture, National Gallery review - a revelation in paintTuesday, 17 April 2018
Art historians can so easily get carried away looking for a thesis, a scaffolding on which to hang theories which can sometimes obscure as much as reveal. Not so here: as near perfect as might be imagined, this is a beautifully laid out, fresh look... Read more... |
Tacita Dean: Portrait, National Portrait Gallery / Still Life, National Gallery review - film as a fine artFriday, 16 March 2018
Sometimes you come across an artwork that changes the way you see the world. Tacita Dean’s film portrait of the American choreographer Merce Cunningham (main picture) is one such encounter. Occupying a whole room at the National Portrait... Read more... |
Murillo: The Self-Portraits, National Gallery review - edged with darknessTuesday, 06 March 2018
Mortality inflects commemoration. So it is with portraiture: the likeness – particularly those which celebrate lives of status and accomplishment – will always be limned with death.The National Gallery’s tiny exhibition of Murillo’s two... Read more... |
Lake Keitele: A Vision of Finland review, National Gallery - light-filled northern vistasSaturday, 18 November 2017
Finland is celebrating its centenary this year and the National Gallery's exhibition of four paintings by Akseli Gallen-Kalela (1865-1931) of a very large lake in central Finland is a beguiling glimpse of the passion its inhabitants attach to its... Read more... |
