The teeming streets of Naples can be thrilling, but also challenging to navigate for cultural tourists. As a consequence, the city’s magnificent art collections are not as well-visited as they should be. The good news this summer is that the finest works of the Capodimonte Museum of Naples have come to the Louvre in Paris, making them accessible to those of us living either in England, Scotland and Wales. The collection, formed by the Farnese, Bourbon and Bonaparte-Murat dynasties before the Unification of Italy in 1861, presents major masterpieces : Masaccio’s ‘Crucifixion’ with its glowing Mary Magdalene, companion to, and completion of, his ‘Pisa Madonna’ in the National Gallery; Bellini’s beautifully lit, almost gilded ‘Transfiguration of Christ’, which relates to his ‘Agony in the Garden’ in the National Gallery; Titian’s portrait of foxy Pope Paul III Farnese and his two fawning grandsons, to be compared to Raphael’s character study portrait of Julius II, also in the National Gallery; startling works by Parmigianino including the arresting portrait of ‘Antea’; the masterpiece of Renaissance metalwork, the Farnese casket, and an absolutely extraordinary ‘Fall of the Giants’ sculpture in biscuit porcelain, as well as a magnificent drawing by Michelangelo for the Pauline Chapel in Rome, and Raphael’s ecstatic ‘Moses before the Burning Bush’.
Just as Naples is insufficiently-visited, so many German painters are insufficiently known. In a show devoted to the explosive art secessions of the late 19c, we see colourful work of the leading Impressionist in Germany, Max Liebermann, and the mysterious Munich symbolist Franz von Stuck, whose dreamlike images floating in dark nebulae and stark contrasts of colour were a direct influence on his pupil Wassily Kandinsky. These superlative works take their place alongside those of the almost Byzantine works of Viennese artist Gustav Klimt, charismatic leader of the Secession in Vienna at the turn of the century.
Sometimes the greatest artists are less well-known in ‘the West’ because they took themselves off to non-European destinations. They may also be less well-known because they were women. Such was the plight, until recently, of the great Surrealist, Remedios Varo. The latter, born in Spain but self-exiled to Mexico City, is now being shown in a one-woman exhibition in no less than the Art Institute of Chicago, one of the finest of American art museums. In paintings replete with mystical creatures, eccentric science, voyagers in curious contraptions—Remedios Varo (1908–1963) mixed ideas from disparate fields of knowledge to create paintings suffused with nothing short of enchantment.
Lunchtime conversations in the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing Restaurant may have diverted your attention from the mural that covers its end wall. If it does attract your eye, you would be forgiven for finding Paula Rego’s ‘Crivelli’s Garden’ hard to relate directly to Crivelli, the late 15c artist of the famous ‘Madonna of the Swallow’, also in the National Gallery, which is to be shown alongside the Rego. Our lecture sets the exhibition in the context of Paula Rego’s extraordinary work as a whole, surely one of the most remarkable achievements of any woman artist, facing the patriarchy head-on with its messages of the strength of women.
We offer you a short course, via current exhibitions, on works and artists that are either insufficiently well-known or insufficiently understood. Please join us for summer discoveries!
We begin with an exhibition at the dynamic, new-kid-on-the-block Barberini Museum in Potsdam, former residence of the Prussian kings. ‘The Sun: Source of Light in Art’ tells a fascinating story, from antiquity to the present, of artists’ representation of the sun, from scratching of its rays into a gessoed panel to attempting to show the optical phenomena brought about by staring directly into it. En route, the exhibition discusses the history of the sun as artistic and mythical metaphor, of sun-gods and sun-kings, the sun as the source of a spectrum of colours, and as indication of emotional effect. A true cornucopia, the exhibition includes works by Rubens, Turner, Monet, Seurat and Olafur Eliasson: altogether providing a gateway into many of our discussions of artist’s relationships to light during this course.
Booking Information:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
This online course via Zoom has been developed by Louise Friend and Nicholas Friend. It will be presented by Nicholas Friend, Co-Founder of Inscape. It is held on Thursdays beginning on Thursday 10 August 2023 at 5 pm and ending on Thursday 7 September 2023 at 5 pm. Please note the time of 5 pm: Nicholas will be lecturing from California (at 9 am his time) for the duration of this course.
You may choose to attend individual sessions or all four. If you would like to attend but cannot manage a particular date, then be assured we will be sending recordings of sessions to all participants. Each session meets from 20 minutes before the advertised time of the lecture, and each lasts roughly one hour with 15 minutes discussion.
Cost: £180 members or £220 non-members for the course of 4 sessions or £45 members or £55 non-members per individual session. All sessions are limited to 21 participants to permit an after-lecture discussion session.
Due to the coronavirus cheques are not a viable option at this time. Instead, please make your payment to Friend&Friend Ltd by bank transfer to our account with Metrobank, bank sort code 23-05-80, account number 13291721 or via PayPal to nicholas@inscapetours.co.uk, or credit/debit card by phone to Henrietta on 07940 719397. She is available Tuesdays 10-12 and 2-5 pm or Thursdays 10-12 and 2-5 pm. Do get in touch if you would like extra support learning how to use Zoom.
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