Morning all. 6.8
Went to the gym yesterday. Kept things very light.
Afterwards I went to see light differently and saw the Sienna exhibition at the National Gallery. I’d been putting off going because the advert is annoying but it’s remarkable.
Many of the alter pieces reconstructed here have been broken up with their various panels in museums dotted all over the world. It’s the first time that they’ve been in the seen complete (or nearly so) in hundreds of years.
Reliquaries have been reunited with panels of gold painted glass for the first time since the late 15thC and the most remarkable monumental plaster slabs showing the base outline of murals on church walls are shown here for the first time anywhere.
I’m not usually one for religious art, or medieval art either tbh but this collection is remarkable in the breadth and the skills it highlights.
This is the official main attraction. It’s tiny. It’s stunning.
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Carved ivory. The detail is amazing.
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I particularly liked the St on the far left who just looks bewildered and a little angry.
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This alter piece has never been seen whole anywhere since being broken up in the 15thC until now.
Again we have an angry Saint (bottom left) but we also have the first recorded example of the classic rugby shirt!
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Loved the emotion in the annunciation panel
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This is a rare example of silk and gold cloth from the early 13thC. There were laws restricting what cloth could be worn by whom and things like this were only worn by high clergy or royalty
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Slabs of plaster from church wall. The Annunciation.
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Of all the intricate, beautiful, complete objects here it was these that stopped me in my tracks.
It was these that I sat on the floor in front of for a while just losing myself in them, in their history, in their simplicity. It was these that I backtracked to at the end and contemplated again and it was these that I’d have happily taken home.