Research Seminar – Colour at the National Gallery (2014)
National Gallery Partnership Lecture at the Bowland Auditorium, Berrick Saul Building, York, 10 March 2014
Dr Caroline Campbell, Curator of Italian Paintings before 1500 and Loans Curator at the National Gallery, London, gave a research seminar in York on 10 March 2014 on ‘Colour at the National Gallery’.
In light of the National Gallery exhibition Making Colour (18 June – 7 September 2014), Dr Campbell discussed the translation of abstract concepts into physical reality, albeit the ephemeral one of a temporary exhibition, through asking the question of whether one can attempt to convey such a complex subject as Colour in a six-room exhibition.
The talk also addressed the more philosophical questions of why one should even embark on such a perilous enterprise and why such exhibitions matter to the discipline of art history.
Sassoferrato, The Virgin in Prayer (1640-50), oil on canvas; National Gallery, London (http://bit.ly/2ucHpFC)
Rachel Ruysch, Flowers in a Vase, c.1685, oil on canvas; National Gallery, London
Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas, Combing the Hair ("La Coiffure") (c.1896), oil on canvas; National Gallery, London (http://bit.ly/2uerBE8)
Main image: The Creation of the World and the Expulsion from Paradise (detail), by Giovanni di Paolo (1445), tempera and gold on wood; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York www.metmuseum.org (http://bit.ly/2uFNT2f)