The Northern Renaissance: Dürer to Holbein
The Queen's Gallery
till 14.04.2013
We were invited to a bloggers preview of this exhibition in the Queen's Gallery earlier. The exhibition celebrates the Renaissance in northern Europe, the counterpart to the revolution in art and scholarship that took place in Italy during the 15th and 16th centuries. In this period, religious changes moved art away from motive devotional scenes to non-religious subjects such as portraiture and mythology.
It was a fascinating experience to find out the connections among all these different works, and get an glimpse of life in the Tudors era.
St John Devouring the Book by Albrecht Dürer - The invention of printing press has allowed for mass production of art work in the form of illustration prints.
There are a couple tapestries featured in the exhibition
The Misers by Follower of Marinus van Reymerswaele - it is obvious that bankers in the middle age were not any better than nowadays
This is where the portrait of Henry VIII in everyone's mind comes from - Copy of the destroyed Whitehall Mural
Curator Kate Heard talked about about how long it has taken to make the show, ‘Exhibitions take some years to plan, from the first idea, through selecting works, researching them, writing the catalogue, working with the conservation and exhibition teams planning the display, to installation. We have been working on the Northern Renaissance exhibition since 2008. It’s a real treat to be able to spend such an extended time studying and thinking about such wonderful works. And of course it’s really exciting to see it finally all come together.’
Remember to collect your free audio guide when you visit.
The next exhibition after this one in the Gallery continues to look at life during the Tudor's era - "In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion" and would open in May 2013.
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Further Readings -
Page: Conserving Holbein's 'Hans of Antwerp'