Tuesday 11 April 2023

Imogen Corrigan: Antonello da Messina

Without any doubt Antonello da Messina stands out as the greatest renaissance artist Sicily produced.
Although he travelled to the mainland and up to Venice, most of his professional life was spent in his home city of Messina producing works of exquisite beauty. One of his strengths was in being able to learn new techniques and styles, adapting them to his own particular style. It has been said that he was always able to catch the moment of the mind and it is true that the faces that look out from his paintings are those of real people.
His use of Netherlandish limpid light combined with northern Italian use of perspective and detailed symbolism make his pictures, once seen, unforgettable.

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Tuesday 14 March 2023
Anne Sebba: Not Just an Obelisk: William Bankes – the exiled collector and the man behind the creation of an English country house
Obelisk is the Russian word for obituary, and it is fitting that the ancient Egyptian obelisk in the
grounds of Kingston Lacy is known as “William’s obelisk”. It’s a fine obituary since he had no
others to speak of. His “moment of madness” ensured that. But for years many people thought
that represented the sum of William’s classical collection. This lecture will show William Bankes,
the Cambridge friend of Byron, as a serious collector of Ancient Egyptian artefacts and Spanish
paintings as well as some fine – and some less fine – Italian decorative art, and the high price he
paid for Victorian morality judging him. Kingston Lacy has been restored by The National Trust.
Can William himself be restored in this talk?

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Tuesday 10 January 2023

PLEASE NOTE THERE HAS BEEN A CHANGE TO THE ORIGINAL LECTURE.

We regret that Anne Bianco, due to give our January lecture, has had to withdraw because of illness.

We are delighted that James Lawson, now retired from the History of Art Department at the University of Edinburgh, has agreed to step in. Members may recall his lecture in September, 2018 on ‘Listening to Pictures’ which was much enjoyed. He will lecture on:

An Interlude in the ‘Labours of the Month’.

Corresponding with the Zodiac in the heavens was, on Earth, the calendar of the Labours of the Months dictating the order of the tasks of rural husbandry. In the later Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, they were illustrated frequently. This talk considers imagery depicting that interval between sowing and harvesting –the time of brief release from toil. Our existence, cast in terms of constraining practicality, gave way to the possibility of lingering upon sentiment – another kind of life. The scene was, typically, of couples riding out into the warming Spring countryside. We trace this feeling –seeing inflected by imagining– from Ambrogio Lorenzetti in 14th-century Tuscany via others through to Rubens in 17th-century Flanders. Scenes of a warm Spring should warm us as we forget the cold and dark of January.

Biographical note:
James Lawson took the Fine Art degree –Drawing and Painting, and History of Art– at Edinburgh College of Art and the University of Edinburgh. He progresses to post-graduate study at the University, researching 15th-century architecture in Mantua in north Italy. Thereafter, he taught, at a number of institutions, the history of painting, sculpture and photography. Now retired, he taught History of Architecture at the University of Edinburgh for the final decade of his career.

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