A Closer Look

Did you know that the average visitor to the Louvre spends 17 seconds looking at Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa? But that scientific research also shows that our physical and mental health improve when we stop, slow down and look closely at a single work of art for a sustained amount of time? In Limelight Arts Travel’s series, A Closer Look, our experts guide you through the process of looking at a work of art in context, revealing the hidden details and stories that lie behind the masterpiece.

A Closer Look: Episode 42 - The Stag Hunt Mosaic From Pella, Greece
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A Closer Look: Episode 42 - The Stag Hunt Mosaic From Pella, Greece

Episode 42: In this episode, archaeologist Dr Kristen Mann joins Dr Nick Gordon to talk about the Stag Hunt Mosaic. This incredible mosaic is made entirely from coloured pebbles. Despite the few variations of colour that were available to the artisans, this work has an amazing painterly quality. But its original location, in a 2,000-square-metre house, also opens a window onto how social relationships, ideas of community and of masculinity, were changing with the rise of Macedon in the Age of Alexander the Great.

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A Closer Look: Episode 41 - An Ancient Greek Epinetron
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A Closer Look: Episode 41 - An Ancient Greek Epinetron

Episode 41: In this episode, archaeologist Dr Kristen Mann joing Dr Kathleen Olive to discuss an epinetron in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. Painted by the celebrated Eretria Painter, it is connected to women’s role in the wool working industry, and to a formative stage in a young woman’s life.

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A Closer Look: Episode 40 - Children, Wine And Ancient Greece
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A Closer Look: Episode 40 - Children, Wine And Ancient Greece

Episode 40: In this episode, archaeologist Dr Kristen Mann joins Dr Nick Gordon, to talk about a painted vessel from the fifth-century BCE. Now in the National Archaeological Museum, it is decorated with imagery that takes us into the world of Athens, the feast of Dionysos and the new season’s wine – and a celebration of community that involves an intriguing coming-of-age ritual for young children.

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A Closer Look: Episode 34 - The Brancacci Chapel
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A Closer Look: Episode 34 - The Brancacci Chapel

Episode 34: In this episode of A Closer Look, Dr Nicholas Eckstein, a historian and expert on the Brancacci Chapel, takes a closer look at Masaccio's fresco of St Peter healing with his shadow.

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A Closer Look: Episode 32 - Lavinia Fontana
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A Closer Look: Episode 32 - Lavinia Fontana

Episode 32: In this episode of A Closer Look, Dr Kathleen Olive makes a case for the importance of Lavinia Fontana, a painter from Bologna who was recognised with the highest professional honours awarded to Italian artists in the seventeenth century.

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A Closer Look: Episode 31 - Katsushika Ōi
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A Closer Look: Episode 31 - Katsushika Ōi

Episode 31: Katushika Ōi, daughter of the great Japanese woodblock artist Hokusai, was a skilful painter and designer. In this episode, we take a look at her painting Night Scene in the Yoshiwara, now in the Ōta Memorial Museum of Art in Tokyo.

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A Closer Look: Episode 30 - The Alexander Mosaic
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A Closer Look: Episode 30 - The Alexander Mosaic

Episode 30: The Naples Archaeological Museum’s huge artwork, known as the Alexander Mosaic, is one of the most iconic ancient examples of this medium. Dr Mary Jane Cuyler, an archaeologist and Latin scholar, joins us to explain further.

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A Closer Look: Episode 28 - The Torlonia Relief
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A Closer Look: Episode 28 - The Torlonia Relief

Episode 28: In this episode, archaeologist and Latin scholar Dr Mary Jane Cuyler introduces us to the Torlonia Relief, a large sculptural work excavated in the 19th century outside Rome.

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A Closer Look: Episode 23 - Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo
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A Closer Look: Episode 23 - Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo

Episode 23: Freya Middleton, an art historian and specialist art guide in Florence, talks to Limelight Arts Travel’s Dr Nick Gordon about Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo. It’s fascinating to uncover how an artist who consistently defined himself as a sculptor innovates in composition and colour, and brings his sculptural aesthetic to an intimate family painting.

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