Date published: 2005/03/26
As seems to be coming more common, there are currently several mega-exhibitions on in London. The National Gallery has a wonderful exhibition of 16 paintings of Caravaggio, mostly produced during the last four years of his life, when he was on the run after having killed someone during a duel. This is one of those exhibitions where the viewers are up to three or four deep, but the paintings are large enough it does not matter that much. And keeping up to their usual standard, the audio guide is quite good. This is also an exhibition where every single one of the paintings on display is of high quality (except that a couple have not been looked after carefully), and they certainly provide ample evidence that Caravaggio was a great painter.
Meanwhile the Victoria and Albert Museum has an exhibition on International Arts and Crafts. (This is to be distinguished from the partly contemporaneous Art Nouveau, although it is not a black and white split.) The exhibition is split into four geographical sections, first Britain, then America, then Europe, and finally Japan. The British section was the most interesting and had the largest crowds, and of course contained many pieces from the V&A's own collection. The American section was the next best, and the last two sections were not so good in comparison. The exhibition naturally had examples of furniture, textiles, ceramics, jewellery, metalwork, printed material, paintings and also had several slide shows (including a quite good one of Blackwell in Windermere by Baillie Scott). The exhibition also had several room settings, including a wonderful dining room table and chairs by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Martin House in Buffalo.
The Royal Academy has an exhibition on Matisse and his textiles. It is upstairs in the Sackler Gallery, so not very big. The main point is that Matisse was in many ways more interested in textiles than he was in painting, and the former featured largely in the latter. Matisse was not a great painter and the most interesting part of the exhibition is indeed the textiles, including five books of late 19th century silk sample books with designs which still look modern.
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