My Upcoming Art Exhibitions List for the Summer and Autumn ✎

Hi everyone,

I have been away from blogging for some time. I’ve been focusing on going to the gym and my fitness, and have been doing some travelling lately. I want to get back into blogging about art.

I have just secured some tickets - for this year - which I am so v. excited about. 😁

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1) The Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum

This is one of the most famous and magnificent panoramic masterpieces of medieval art that survives today. This embroidered piece of linen cloth is as important as it is beautiful. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!! (Please see this BBC YouTube documentary)

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2) Frida: The Making of an Icon at Tate Modern

A major retrospective on Frida Kahlo the artist and the icon. I am very excited about this because she is not an artist I know a lot about. So, I am excited to see an intellectual and aesthetic exploration of this iconic artist.

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3) Francisco de Zurbaran at the National Gallery

For me, when it comes to Spanish Baroque, I venerate Bartolome Esteban Murillo and, of course, the great Velazquez. Yet, Zurbaran’s famous Saint Francis in Meditation is one of the National Gallery’s most iconic paintings and typifies this artist’s quiet, powerful & intense chiaroscuro & style.

I am so very excited to get a deep dive into an artist who, for me, has been rather marginal in Spanish Baroque.

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4) Early Netherlandish Drawings at British Museum

I love the Dutch Golden Age and the Northern Renaissance. So this exhibition at the British Musuem is so up my alley. It is a VERY rare survey of highly detailed 15th and 16th century Northern Renaissance drafts, including the greats: Rogier van der Weyden, Pieter Bruegel the Elder etc...

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5) Tracey Emin retrospective at the Tate Modern

Merh.

I think Emin is an underwhelming and tedious artist. I expect to be bored, but I feel I owe to myself to make an effort when presented with a major retrospective of a so-called serious artist.

The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V ✎

I saw this commemorative medal dedicated to Emperor Charles V. 

He is on my list of top 10 historical figures I wish I could talk to.

Beautiful German Renaissance craftsmanship: “silver-gilt medal was made by Hans Reinhardt the Elder, in Germany in 1537.”

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I’ve been deeply fascinated by Charles V. 

His power was unrivalled in the 16th century and he completely changed European history, but I also think an overall decent(ish) Emperor.

• The Sack of Rome - Charles V’s own army caused the Sack of Rome. The army hadn’t been paid in months, and they were practically starving. The Duke of Bourbon (defecting from King Francis I of France) was nominally the “commander”, but had very little control over them. He gave an order to “take Rome”. His Imperial troops attacked and the army turned into a leaderless mob. The Sack of Rome was a total collapse in all human decency and human restraint. Torture, mass murders, and mass rapes (even of nuns). The great basilica of St Peters was used as a stable for horses. It’s probably unknown how many irreplaceable manuscripts and masterpieces were destroyed. He was publically horrified by his own army and it is a great irony: the man who spent his life fighting to preserve the Catholic Church against the Reformation was the same man whose army effectively destroyed the Renaissance Papacy. Renaissance too. 
• The Dutch Golden Age - Flemish Charles V was the unintentional “founding father” of the Dutch Golden Age. His religious policies and his eventual abdication, and giving the Netherland to Spanish Philip II, set the stage for the Netherlands to become a global superpower.
• Causing Henry VIII to leave the Catholic Church - Normally, Popes granted favors to kings all the time. But Charles V forced the Pope’s hand preventing the annulment. The irony here is that Charles inadvertently helped create one of the most powerful Protestant nations in European history which then became a massive rival to his own deeply Catholic son, Philip II. One of the first major Catholic but secular forces that reigned Papal power.
• Humble End - He died as a simple monk (mostly), wearing plain clothes instead of robes.

The Normalisation of Systemic Hatred Against Jews in the UK ✎

Antisemitism is on the rise in the UK.

It’s been getting more-and-more nasty and especially very scary.

The Golders Green attack of last month was a very dark day. Not just for two Jewish individuals brutally stabbed by a maniac, but because it demonstrates warnings about the normalisation of extreme anti-Zionist rhetoric, almost always a contributing factor to anti-Jewish violence.

Headline today shows university Jewish students receiving death threats!  What is this?

Anti-semitism, is one of oldest and virulent of the irrational hatreds that saturates the Middle East. It is a key component of Palestinian Arab culture. It is also a significant undercurrent of Leftist ideology, and has been since at least Karl Marx and his self-loathing of his Jewish heritage. The antisemitism on the Right suffered a moral defeat after the horrors of the Holocaust. Today, about 80 years after the Holocaust, the generation that witnessed it first-hand have mostly passed away and antisemitism is undergoing a recrudescence. Now, Iran has replaced Germany. 

Since Oct-7, the focus of attacks have been concentrated on Jewish targets. From the miniature Kristallnachts perpetrated on university campuses, to stabbings of clothing-identifiable Jews on the streets of major cities, to the vandalism directed at Jewish identifiable buildings; it represents a change in the direction of violence. The point is to separate Jews from their neighbours and community. In essence, while the antisemitism seems outrageous, it offers the West a way out of the current chaos: “allow us to kill off the Jews and we will leave you alone”. 

I am in favour of free speech, but I think there is something deeply wrong in UK culture that it is mainstream and routine to call for the dismantling of the world’s only Jewish state, and when slogans such as “Globalise the Intifada” are tolerated under the banner of political expression. These nasty ideas carry real-world consequences for Jewish communities in England.

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Our King recently went to visit the Jewish community in Golders Green and met the Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis:

The Madonna of the Meadow by Raphael (1506) ✎

I saw this exquisite masterpiece in Vienna.

The harmony of the composition is absolutely captivating.

Raphael painted this when he was only about 23 years old. Raphael lived a brilliant but tragically short life, dying at the age of 37 in 1520.

I like the contrast between Mary’s slightly melancholic expression (reflecting her tragic prescience) and the two children playing.

Serene Italian landscape.

Baby Christ’s soft chubby cheeks and baby fat is High Renaissance naturalism.

A departure from the medieval homunculus to the divine as fully human in the flesh.

St John the Baptist giving Christ the cross.

King Charles III at the US Congress ✎

Watching the King deliver a wonderful address with grace and humour, referencing shared cultural icons of Oscar Wilde and Charles Dickens, it shows the respect and dignity a head of state should command.

My favourite part is when he said: “America’s words carry weight and meaning, as they have since independence. The actions of this great nation matter even more.”

I think the respect and dignity of the US government has been on the decline ever since Donald Trump. His rudeness and disrespectful attitude to his so-called allies (esp. Canada), and his vindictive egomania, has really tarnished the gravitas of the US.

Anyway, well done King Charles. 

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My favourite system of government is a Parliament with a constitutional monarchy. The best argument in favour of this approach was articulated by Sir Walter Bagehot. Bagehot famously divided the British government into two distinct branches: the dignified and the efficient. The Crown is the “dignified” part of our constitution. Its purpose is not to “govern”, but to provide the symbolic historical foundations of our nation. I think this is a deeply conservative institution and, my goodness, I can’t overestimate its importance. The Monarch is not elected, and don’t take sides in debates. They are a living bridge to our past, our culture, the nation’s history and continuity. They represent the nation’s shared identity from centuries ago to the present day which transcend the prevailing political differences of the day. 

In divided & difficult times, the Monarchy is consistent and visible. Their value to the UK is immeasurable.