Date published: 2006/09/24
London, as usual, has some good exhibitions on. (It's one of the few reasons to go anywhere near London.)
The Victoria and Albert Museum has an exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci drawings (on until 7 January 2007). Leonardo (everyone seems to call him just by his first name) is perhaps the world's favourite genius, since he was suitably brilliant and suitably eccentric. The exhibition featured just over 60 of his drawings, mostly from the collection of Queen Elizabeth, and providing a snapshot of his wide-ranging interests, from anatomy to weapons to geometry and architecture. The exhibition is in the usual V&A exhibition space, but only in the front half (the first room). The exhibition was not crowded numerically but you pretty much had to view the two long displays in linear order. The pace was not unreasonable but occasionally it stopped because someone had one of those audio guides. They had some amazingly well-done animations on the walls above, so one could at least keep occupied during the waits.
You might expect the Leonardo exhibition to be the hit of the season. But over at the Royal Academy there is a large exhibition on Rodin (on until 1 January 2007 at the RA, and then at the Kunsthaus in Zurich from 9 February to 13 May 2007). It contains at least one version of all his famous works ("The Kiss", "The Thinker", "The Burghers of Calais", etc.), but also a lot of preparatory work, minor sculptures and drawings. The drawings were not great. And some of the sketches were just scribbles and Rodin would have been sorry to see those shown in this way. But he's a great sculptor and his great sculpture is all on display in this one place. There is even a full-size version of the "Gates of Hell" in the RA forecourt. For those who like exhibition catalogues, that is unfortunately not complete photographically, not even including, for example, a decent copy of the large "Burghers of Calais" sculpture which dominates the largest room in the exhibition, nor of "The Kiss". The exhibition was busy but there was never any problem seeing the sculptures properly, it almost felt like a private viewing.
Also at the RA, and soon to finish (on 15 October 2006), is an exhibition on "Modigliani and His Models", up in the Sackler Gallery. After Rodin, seeing Modigliani is a bit of a shock to the system. Here you can see a portrait of a woman and another one of a man right next to it, and if you didn't read the labels you might think it was one and the same person. In fact one advantage of showing so many Modiglianis in one spot is that it is totally obvious that his style was rather fixed. Oval face, two small black lines for eyebrows, two curved lines for a nose, and red lips. He must have had a great personality because it's hard to imagine anyone wanting to sit for him, given the unsympathetic result. Unbelievably there seemed to be more people in the Modigliani exhibition than in the Rodin one, and given that the former occupied a fraction of the space of the latter, it was rather too crowded for comfort. But at least the catalogue is worthwhile.
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