As museums and galleries close for another lockdown here are some postcards I have liberated from their shelves in the past...
1) PORTRAIT OF A GIRL (1912) - Mark Gertler
I bought this at the Dulwich Picture Gallery when it showed the CRISIS OF BRILLIANCE exhibition which celebrated the pre-WWI year at the Slade School which
included Mark Gertler, Dora Carrington, Paul Nash, Stanley Spencer and
Christopher Nevinson. Mark Gertler was 21 when he painted this lovely study of a young woman in his final year at the Slade.
Gertler has painted her in a soft mauve blouse with a matching headress, which really pops against a dark green wall. The bright red bead necklace which hangs loosely around her neck is gathered in her hand and she gazes coolly out at us like a Renaissance heroine. I really like the marriage of colours in this as well as the subject's impassive stare. This is in the Tate collection.
2) THE TOMB OF FRA ANGELICO (circa 1455) - Isaia da Pisa
This came from the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva which is down the left-hand side of the Pantheon in Rome - you cannot miss it, there is a huge statue of an elephant carrying an obelisk outside! Although "a flower of Tuscany". the former Guido de Pietro died while working in Rome so is buried there.
In 2018 the full-length marble tomb stone was damaged by vandals so I hope it has been restored. Next to the tomb is a lovely epitaph which sums up the humble Dominican Friar who was also one of the greatest of Renassance painters; it translates as:
When singing my praise, don't liken my talents to those of Apelles.
Say, rather, that, in the name of Christ, I gave all I had to the poor.
The deeds that count on Earth are not the ones that count in Heaven.
I, Giovanni, am the flower of Tuscany.
3) 'YO': SELF PORTRAIT (1901) - Pablo Picasso
This came from the Courtauld Gallery in 2013 when they mounted an exhibition of Picasso's work all from his pivotal year of 1901. Picasso started 1901 in Barcelona but the end of the year found him back in Paris, painting the spare, emotive works of his 'Blue Period'.
Pablo emerges from a dark background, staring at the viewer: you can really feel the burning concentration in his eyes as he captures the moment in time and his place in it. His jacket is sketched in with broad strokes, the main attraction is Pablo and he makes sure nothing distracts from it.
4) BUST OF QUEEN NEFERTITI (circa 1345 bc) - Thutmose (?)
Mona who? The real iconic female artwork for the ages is the glorious bust of Queen Nefertiti, who reigns in serene, imperious isolation at the Neues Museum in Berlin. After wandering - or running - through their Egyptian rooms, you are ushered into her presence a few at a time and take your place in history, walking around and around her, trying to find something unexpected.
It was discovered in 1912 by the German archeologist Ludwig Borchardt in the site of the workshop of sculpter Thutmose in the ruined site of the city of Armana which was the capital city of Akhenaten, Nerfertiti's pharaoh husband. Mystery surrounds most of her life and the overthrowing of Akhenaten due to his wish to move Egypt from a multi-god belief system to one based around the sun, the Aten, would have helped her attempted erasure from history but how remarkable that her face is the eternal female representation of Ancient Egypt as the death mask of her son-in-law - and stepson - Tutankhamun represents the male. She is glorious....
5) TORNABUONI CHAPEL, SANTA MARIA NOVELLA (1485-1490) - Domenico Ghirlandaio
The Tornabuoni Chapel is the main chapel in Florence's monumental Santa Maria Novella which is where this was bought; it can be a bit of a tight squeeze negotiating around the gothic altar to see the Ghirlandaio frescoes but it's worth persevering as they still look wonderfully intact. He worked on the frescos with his students so Michelangelo's brushwork might be on them somewhere.
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