Would you like to find out more about the wonderful masterpieces of Italian Baroque art at the National Gallery?
If so, you are welcome to join a group on Friday 19th November at 10.30am at the National Gallery for my Gallery Talk on artists such as Caravaggio, Carracci, Reni and Gentileschi.
Please contact me if you would like to join the group that morning and I will send you further details.
The magnificent Italian Baroque paintings are displayed in the sumptous surroundings of the newly refurbished Julia and Hans Rausing Room with its ornate painted frieze and lunettes and dark red wall cloth reinstating the original 19th century colour scheme.
The Baroque style which emerged in Rome at the turn of the 17th century represented a new direction in the arts, as the Catholic Church put pressure on artists to seek the most convincing realism possible in its campaign to counter the Protestant Reformation. Dynamic compositions, virtuoso brushwork, dazzling skill, dramatic lighting and vivid use of colour were employed to express emotional intensity in paintings for private and public worship. Caravaggio’s religious works were painted in true Counter-Reformation spirit, but the unprecedented realism and drama of his paintings caused rejection by many and his rebellious spirit lay outside the conventions of society. The ideal landscape tradition began, with artists developing a classical style of naturalism.
