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 47 - Simone Martini’s St Louis Of Toulouse
Episode 47: In this episode, Dr Kathleen Olive takes Simone Martini’s fourteenth-century altarpiece, St Louis of Toulouse crowning Robert of Anjou, as an example of the political and visual sophistication of Gothic art.
A Closer Look: Episode 46 - A Flung Ink Landscape Painting By Sesshū Tōyō
Episode 46: In this episode, Dr Kathleen Olive discusses one of Japan’s National Treasures, a flung ink or "splashed ink" landscape of the fifteenth century that was painted by the great Sesshū Tōyō and is now in the National Museum in Tokyo.
A Closer Look: Episode 45 - Edward Kienholz’s Portable War Memorial
Episode 45: In this episode, Dr Nick Gordon introduces Edward Kienholz's Portable War Memorial. Now located in the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the installation offers an opportunity to reflect on how war impacts on domestic policy and modern social realities, and how twentieth-century art grappled with the conceptual and visual consequences of it.
A Closer Look: Episode 44 - Gislbertus And Sculpture In Saint-Lazare, Autun
Episode 44: In this episode, Dr Kathleen Olive looks closely at two stone capitals, carved in the early twelfth century as part of the decoration of Saint-Lazare cathedral in Autun.
A Closer Look: Episode 43 - Vermeer’s Geographer
Episode 43: In this episode, Dr Nick Gordon introduces us to the historical context of The Geographer and to Vermeer's technique.
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.
A Closer Look: Episode 41 - An Ancient Greek Epinetron
Episode 41: In this episode, archaeologist Dr Kristen Mann joins 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.
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.
A Closer Look: Episode 39 - Federico Barocci’s Virgin Of The People
Episode 39: In this episode, Limelight Arts Travel’s director Kathleen Olive sits down with artist and art historian Dominique Millar to take a closer look at Federico Barocci’s Virgin of the People.
A Closer Look: Episode 38 - Santi Di Tito’s Holy Family
Episode 38: In this episode, Limelight’s Nick Gordon sits down with artist and art historian Dominique Millar, to take a closer look at Santi di Tito’s Holy Family, now in Ajaccio’s Musée Fesch.
A Closer Look: Episode 37 - Guido Reni’s Atalanta And Hippomenes
Episode 37: In this episode of A Closer Look, artist and art historian Dominique Millar takes a closer look at Reni’s Atalanta and Hippomenes, a carefully composed and brilliantly executed work on a fascinating mythological theme.
A Closer Look: Episode 36 - Siena’s Piazza Del Campo
Episode 36: In this episode of A Closer Look, Dr Nick Gordon sits down with historian of medieval and Renaissance Italy, Dr Nick Eckstein, to discuss Siena’s beautiful Piazza del Campo.
A Closer Look: Episode 35 - An Early View Of Florence
Episode 35: In this episode of A Closer Look, historian Dr Nick Eckstein joins Dr Nick Gordon to take us inside the loggia, and also inside the city and the mentality of its inhabitants.
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.
A Closer Look: Episode 33 - Leonardo’s Lady With an Ermine
Episode 33: In this episode of A Closer Look, Dr Nick Gordon and Dr Kathleen Olive discuss Leonardo da Vinci’s beautiful portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, the so-called Lady with an Ermine that is now in Krakow.
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.
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.
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.
A Closer Look: Episode 29 - Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers in Rome
Episode 29: You may be familiar with Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers in Rome. In this episode, archaeologist Dr Mary Jane Cuyler reveals the history of the ancient obelisk that surmounts it.
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.