
Don’t miss this excellent exhibition at the National Gallery, which runs until 2nd October – and is free!
‘Devotion by Design’ explores the function, the original location, and the development of altarpieces in Italy during the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance.
The exhibits are all or nearly all from the Gallery’s own collections, but the curators have worked hard to lift them out of the “gallery” and recontextualise them both in sacred space (dimmed lighting, altar-like plinths, organ music) and within the altarpiece setting itself.
So many altarpieces were first re-arranged, as fashions changed from for example the tiered assemblage of smaller figures to a single larger group done in perspective, and then later simple sundered, that seeing them in an art gallery not only over-prioritises our aesthetic, art-historical response, but also denies us the “story” that makes sense of the sign.
Don’t miss the very good video showing next door which explains all this and shows works under conservation too.
Filed under: Art



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