M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L
London Days
Non-residential events to inform and inspire
Bulletin 7, Summer 2014
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Contents Sculpture in London.............................. page 2 John Nash................................................................. 3 Mediaeval Art in London................................ 4 Stained Glass.......................................................... 4 Arts & Crafts.......................................................... 5 Seven Churches & a Synagogue................. 5 ‘Wren’ in the City NEW................................... 6 Hawksmoor NEW................................................ 7 Dixon Jones NEW................................................ 8 The London Backstreet Walk....................... 9 Great Railway Termini....................................... 9 London’s Underground Railway............... 10 The Italian Renaissance.................................. 11 The Genius of Titian........................................ 12 Ancient Greece................................................. 13 Making a booking.....................................................................14 London Days soon to be launched...............................14 London Days 2014–15 by date......................................15
• These London Days explore the art, architecture and history of the most varied and exciting city in the world. • They are led by carefully chosen experts who provide informative and enlightening commentary. • Meticulously planned with special arrangements and privileged access being significant features. • Radio guides enable lecturers to talk in a normal conversational mode while participants can hear without difficulty.
Sculpture in London Art in streets, squares & parks Thursday 11th September 2014 (lb 188) Lecturer: David Mitchinson Thousands of tons of bronze and stone adorn London’s streets and open spaces in the form of memorials and works of art. Many aspire to be both, with varying degrees of success. Only a small minority are sculptural masterpieces. Artistic worth determines the selection for this day, and months of diligent sifting has resulted in twenty-five or so major works scattered across central London, from Hyde Park Corner in the West End to Bishopsgate in the City. The day is led by David Mitchinson, writer, lecturer and former director of the Henry Moore Foundation. The focus is the twentieth century, with a little spillage into adjacent decades at both ends. Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Jacob Epstein, Eric Gill, Elizabeth Frink, Charles Sargeant Jagger and Fernando Botero are among the sculptors whose works are studied. Many Londoners and visitors will have seen at least some of them; not many, we venture to suggest, have really looked at them long and hard and felt their power and their beauty. Travel is by Underground and taxi. Participants need to be able to cope with quite a lot of time on foot, standing or walking. Lunch in a good restaurant and morning and afternoon refreshments are included.
Start: 9.00am, The Wellington Arch, Hyde Park Corner. Finish: c. 5.15pm at Oxford Circus. Price: £165. Group size: maximum 18 participants.
• All are accompanied by an administrator to ensure arrangements run smoothly. • These are active days, often with a lot of walking and standing. Travel is mainly by Underground, sometimes taxi, occasionally by private coach or bus. M A R T I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L
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London Days 3 The Throne Room at Buckingham Palace, wood engraving c. 1880.
John Nash
The man who transformed London Thursday 14th August 2014 (la 984) Lecturer: Dr Geoffrey Tyack While London at the beginning of the 19th century was the largest and most prosperous city in the world, it fell far behind many other capitals in the magnificence of its government buildings and the grandeur of its street layout. This was a direct outcome of the limits put on British monarchical authority – and spending power – after the Glorious Revolution, and the concomitant resistence to central authority of any kind. It is no coincidence that the monarch most widely despised by his subjects since 1688 was the one who encouraged the greatest episode of town planning and large-scale beautification in the history of London, George IV, Regent from 1811 – the year when the leases of Regent’s Park fell in. But the person most responsible for the park’s incomparable architectural rim, and for the great sequence of thoroughfares leading south to Whitehall, was John Nash. Nash’s star is now in the ascendant again, but for M A R T I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L
much of the last two hundred years his detractors have predominated, with mutterings about his shady dealings as a developer, his (or rather his wife’s) improper relationship with his royal patron, his sloppiness as a designer and the shoddiness of his stucco-wrapped buildings. As an architect he was sometimes somewhat broad-brush, but he was master of effects both grand and picturesque. Simply turning his Regent Street masterplan into reality in only ten years was an extraordinary achievement. Nearly all his surviving buildings, urban improvements and park landscaping in central London are seen on this day, beginning with Regent’s Park and finishing with his Buckingham palace interiors, unquestionably the most regal in the realm. Dr Tyack is an architectural historian whose monograph on John Nash was published in 2013. Start: 9.30am, Camden Town Underground Station. Finish: c. 6.00pm, Buckingham Palace. There is one journey by bus, otherwise the day is spent on foot. Price: £210. This includes lunch, refreshments, one admission charge and donations. Group size: maximum 16 participants. www. ma r ti n r a n d a l l . c om
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Mediaeval Art in London
The principal museum collections Thursday 25th September 2014 (lb 156) Lecturer: John McNeill Most traces of mediaeval London have been erased by iconoclasm, bombardment, conflagration and, last but not least, three hundred years of outfitting the city for its role as the world’s leading commercial centre. But that is to reckon without the presence of some of the best museums in the world – and the role of luck in ensuring unexpected survivals. This day is concerned with what is now considered to be art, not with archaeology or architecture, and allows a view of most of the best European artworks which survive from around ad 500 to 1500 (Renaissance items excepted). The recently opened Mediaeval and Renaissance Galleries in the Victoria & Albert Museum provide a brilliant display of a range of artefacts which makes it one of the best mediaeval museums anywhere. All techniques and materials are represented: sculpture in stone and ivory; gold, silver and iron; textiles and tapestries; glass, pottery, enamel, paint. Though smaller, the mediaeval holdings at the British Museum have also benefited from recent re-display. A distinguishing feature here is Byzantine art. Outstanding are the Lewis Chessmen, painted fragments from Westminster Palace and the celestially exquisite Royal Gold Cup. The altarpiece from Westminster Abbey, now in the Abbey Museum, is but a fragment, but what remains justifies claims that it is the finest panel painting surviving from thirteenth-century Europe. The Courtauld Gallery has a remarkable collection of early Italian painting and Gothic ivory carvings, while the National Gallery has the finest holding of early Italian painting outside Italy.
Stained Glass Glorious Illumination
Tuesday 16th September 2014 (lb 157) Lecturer: Peter Cormack Post-mediaeval stained glass is the most unfairly neglected of the pictorial arts in Britain. Few people give it a second glance, even fewer invest the time necessary to allow a window to reveal its meaning and its full beauty. Yet some examples in the medium made between the middle of the nineteenth century and the First World War are among the finest works of art of the time. Present in nearly every church in the land, the very ubiquity of stained glass windows militates against attention, especially as the majority, as with any art form, scarcely merit close attention. The choice for this day is determined by artistic quality, by variety of type and authorship and, though this hardly seems a rational criterion, proximity to the District Line. Fortuitously, this does not compromise the other two criteria at all. This is a glorious day of iridescent beauty, in eight churches between Putney Bridge and Monument Stations. There is one fine sixteenth-century window Holy Trinity Sloane Street, from Some London Churches, 1911.
Start: 10.15am at the Victoria & Albert Museum, South Kensington. Finish: c. 6.00pm at the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square. Price: £195. This includes two journeys by underground railway and two by taxi; admission charges; lunch and morning and afternoon refreshments. Group size: maximum 16 participants. M A R T I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L
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and several from the later twentieth century but late Victorian and Edwardian work predominates. This period witnessed a peak of technical accomplishment and artistic – and chromatic – brilliance. Stained glass was rarely in the vanguard of artistic development. Much of its allure lies in its postPre-Raphaelite sweetness and poignancy, Aesthetic Movement yearning and graceful naturalism, innocent of the visceral primitivism beginning to be introduced by leading Continental painters, though later the medium proved to be very well suited to abstraction. The lecturer is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a Vice-President and Honorary Fellow of the British Society of Master Glass Painters. His forthcoming (2015) book Arts & Crafts Stained Glass was written while he was a Research Fellow at the V&A Museum. Start: Westminster Underground Station, 9.15am or St Margaret’s Westminster, 9.30am. Finish: Southwark Cathedral (nearest underground stations Monument or London Bridge) c. 5.45pm. Price: £195, including refreshments and lunch, travel by underground railway and donations to the churches visited. Group size: maximum 16 participants. Fitness: there is a considerable amount of walking between stations and churches. Travelling throughout is by underground and standing may be necessary.
Arts & Crafts
Art, architecture & decoration from Bexleyheath to Chiswick Wednesday 17th September 2014 (lb 187) Lecturer: Michael Hall For a long while Art & Crafts was the acceptable face of Victorian art. Sales of William Morris wallpaper boomed while many major Victorian buildings succumbed to the wrecker’s ball. Fortunately, loathing of all things Victorian has now largely evaporated, but creations which fit into the Arts & Crafts category – not so much a style as a basket of ideas and attitudes – still stand out as exceptionally M A R T I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L
London Days 5 appealing and intriguing. The day provides a splendid survey of this dissident and even subversive phenomenon, with excellent examples in many media. It begins with the 1859 Red House at Bexleyheath – as did the movement – and ends with a 1902 wallpaper factory in Chiswick. (Among the present occupants are Martin Randall Travel, and participants are invited in for a drink.) For its instigators, the movement was as much about politics and economics as a matter of aesthetic preference. They championed craftsmanship and craftsmen and excoriated industrialisation and machine-made artefacts; most added a dollop of Utopian socialism though with varying degrees of commitment. A.W. Pugin was the precursor, Ruskin its prophet and Morris the high priest. Arts & Crafts emancipated the designer to the status of artist, strove to give everyone access to beauty and, despite a persistent and rose-tinted view of the Middle Ages, achieved liberation from historic styles while incorporating exotic influences. Along the way it entwined with Art Nouveau, held hands with the Aesthetic Movement and, according to a view which superficially seems perverse, gave birth to international modernism. Start: 9.00am at Tower Place East, London EC3. Finish: c. 7.00pm at Hammersmith station. Price: £210. This includes transport by coach and Underground, lunch at the V&A, morning, afternoon and evening refreshments, admission charges and donations. Group size: maximum 15 participants.
Seven Churches & a Synagogue
Some of London’s finest buildings Thursday 18th September 2014 (lb 189) Lecturer: Jon Cannon Wednesday, 22nd October 2014 (lb 171) Lecturer: Jon Cannon As the most populous metropolis in the west until well into the twentieth century, and as capital of a nation notorious for its multitudinous shades of churchmanship, it is not surprising that London www. ma r ti n r a n d a l l . c om
6 London Days possesses the largest number of churches and the greatest variety of ecclesiastical architecture to be found in any single city. Subjectivity must play a role in selecting these seven, as do logistics, but it is fair to claim that they are among the best of their kind. This is an extraordinarily fascinating day, enriching aesthetically, historically and spiritually. There are two mediaeval buildings, the imposing Romanesque remnant of the abbey church of St Bartholomew the Great and the glorious Gothic of the Knights Templars’ church. Wren’s ingenious domed church of St Stephen Walbrook, the faultless St Mary-le-Strand by Gibbs and the magnificent Anglican Baroque of Christ Church Spitalfields by Hawksmoor are outstanding examples of the classical phase of architecture – as is the Bevis Marks Synagogue of 1699, one of the City’s little-known treasures. Butterfield’s All Saints Margaret Street is a seminal masterpiece of the Gothic Revival, of which the sublimely lovely St Cyprian’s, Clarence Gate, by Sir John Ninian Comper, is one of the last great examples. The speaker concentrates on the essentials, highlighting what is distinctive and significant about the architecture and decoration and pointing out only the most distinguished artworks and furnishings. Time at each building does not allow for detail that is of merely local interest. Thus the day provides immersion in the beauty of greater things.
‘Wren’ in the City Parish churches & St Paul’s
Wednesday 1st October 2014 (lb 181) Lecturer: Professor Gavin Stamp Before the Great Fire of 1666 there were 107 parish churches in the City of London. Only 22 survived; 23 were not rebuilt; 52 were rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren. This is a major achievement, one without parallel. Given that very few churches were built in England after the Henrician Reformation, and that pure Classicism was still a rare accomplishment in these isles, it fell to Wren virtually to invent the post-mediaeval English church. Wren was England’s greatest architect; that was the orthodox verdict for much of the twentieth century. Recently scholars have shown his role as architect of the City churches to have ranged from dominant to nothing at all. Of the six parish churches entered on this walk, only two were definitely designed in their St Paul’s Cathedral from Ludgate Circus, lithograph c. 1880.
Start: 9.15am, St-Bartholomew-the-Great in the City (tube station: Barbican). Finish: c. 5.45pm, Baker Street Station. Travel is by private coach, but there is quite a lot of walking. Price: £205. This includes lunch (at Middle Temple Hall, the finest Elizabethan interior in London), refreshments, one admission charge and a donation to each church. Group size: maximum 18 participants.
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entirety by Wren himself, while two are certainly by others. Nevertheless, his management of the rebuilding project, and his undeniable contribution of ingenuity, inventiveness and beauty, leaves his genius little diminished, and the subject of the City churches even more interesting. Only 23 of the churches survive, and most of those are considerably changed. Intact survival, authenticity and atmosphere determine the selection for this walk. Oh, and Wren did a cathedral. This was also a heroic struggle against parsimony, prejudice and hostility, but nevertheless within forty years there arose one of the world’s great ecclesiastical buildings, and Britain’s finest classical construction. The day incorporates some special arrangements including ascent to the triforium (141 steps) and a view of the Great Model. Start: 9.20am, Blackfriars Underground Station. Finish: c. 5.15pm, Bank Station. Walking: c. 2 miles. Price: £195. This includes lunch, refreshments, admission charge and donations. Group size: maximum 18 participants.
Hawksmoor
The six London churches Thursday 9th October 2014 (lb 182) Lecturer: Professor Gavin Stamp Nicholas Hawksmoor (1661–1736) dropped from public consciousness while Wren and Vanbrugh did not. In so far as he was known before the 20th century he was reviled for just those qualities which lead to passionate attachment to his creations now – boldness, massiveness, Baroque vigour, dissident classicism and sculptural imagination. Yet he is probably an even greater architect than his documented buildings show; it is highly likely that he is the author of some of the finer parts of buildings long attributed to others. He was Wren’s assistant for over twenty years, and also collaborated with Vanbrugh. The Baroque flowering of Wren’s late works should probably be ascribed to Hawksmoor, while his professionalism and artistry were key to turning the soldier-playwright into a great architect. M A R T I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L
Christ Church Spitalfields, from Some London Churches, 1911.
Taken together, his greatest achievement remains the six London churches built in accordance with the 1711 Act of Parliament. This specified fifty new churches; only twelve were built, not least because Hawksmoor’s extravagant ambition absorbed an undue proportion of the funds. Remarkably, they all survive, though one is a (well-preserved) shell after the Blitz. The journey by coach takes in St George’s Bloomsbury, St Mary Woolnoth, Christ Church Spitalfields, St George-in-the-East Stepney, St Anne’s Limehouse and St Alfege Greenwich. Thomas Archer’s contemporaneous St Paul’s Deptford is also included. Start: 9.20am, Holborn tube station. Finish: c. 5.20pm, Greenwich; the ferry to Tower Hill, Embankment and Westminster (c. 35 minutes) is recommended. Price: £205. This includes travel by coach, lunch, refreshments and donations to the churches. Group size: maximum 20 participants.
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Dixon Jones
Architects of cultural London Thursday 16th October 2014 (lb 179) Lecturer: Jeremy Dixon The Royal Opera House, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Kings Place: every reader of this will be familiar with at least one of these, and many of you will know them all. Apart from being among the most illustrious cultural institutions in Britain, they have something else in common, which is that they have been transformed to some degree, or built in its entirety, by the architectural firm Dixon Jones. The partnership was formed by Jeremy Dixon and Edward Jones for the Royal Opera House refurbishment in the 1980s. Cultural projects, university buildings and commercial developments in sensitive urban sites form the bulk of their work. Conjuring up additional space within an unalterable footprint, easing circulation and transforming services, inserting uplifting, light-filled structures – Dixon Jones have significantly improved the lives of both artists and audiences in London. Jeremy Dixon himself is our guide for this day, for which some very special arrangements have been made. It begins at a place which is not itself a cultural institution but which runs between several of them, Exhibition Road in South Kensington, which the partnership transformed in 2012 into one
of London’s most enjoyable streets. Also included is Quadrant 3, the redevelopment of the former Regent Palace Hotel in Piccadilly Circus, the most ambitious project ever undertaken by the Crown Estate. Start: 9.30am, South Kensington tube station. Finish: c. 5.30pm, Kings Place (5 minutes from King’s Cross). Travel: One journey by tube, three by taxi, but there is quite a lot of walking. Price: £205. This includes refreshments, lunch, special arrangements and travel. Group size: maximum 16 participants. Details of an optional dinner and evening concert at Kings Place following the tour are available on request. Left: the Royal Opera House (courtesy of Dixon Jones). Above: Kings Place (photograph ©Richard Bryant).
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The London Backstreet Walk
From Hyde Park to The Tower Tuesday 7th October 2014 (lb 158) Lecturer: Giles Waterfield Wednesday 15th October 2014 (lb 167) Lecturer: Professor Gavin Stamp Both departures are currently full, but will run again. This walk is predicated on two beliefs. The first, platitudinous if rarely put to the test, is that the centre of London is not so large that people of ordinary fitness couldn’t walk everywhere. The second would perhaps be greeted in some quarters with scepticism: that one can traverse the capital from Hyde Park Corner to the Tower of London without walking along main roads for more than a couple of hundred yards in total. This is London seen from parks, gardens, alleys, backstreets and pedestrian zones. As the crow flies, it is exactly 3⅓ miles, but as avoiding traffic requires some circuitous deviations the distance covered is nearer at least twice as far. This may be a tiring day, but with three refreshment breaks and a lunch it but it is not really strenuous.
London Days 9 Group size: maximum 18 participants. Fitness: you should be able to walk at about 3 mph for at least an hour at a time. The terrain is fairly flat but there are steps (including one flight of 57 steps). Stout shoes are of course advisable – but no trainers please: they are specifically forbidden at the lunch venue.
Great Railway Termini
Paddington, King’s Cross & St Pancras Thursday 6th November 2014 (lb 191) Thursday 5th February 2015 (lb 239) Lecturer: Professor Gavin Stamp Two eyebrow-raising assertions: the railways were a Georgian invention, all the ingredients being in place before 1830; and the twenty-first century is witnessing a golden age of rail travel. The first is indisputable fact, if surprising to contemplate; the St Pancras Station, wood engraving c. 1880.
The route – which is far from obvious, as may be understood – is laced with delights and surprises. Many famous buildings are passed or glimpsed, but largely the interest lies in unexpected clusters of pre-20th-century architecture, picturesque vistas and intriguing alleys, patches of parkland and welltended gardens, recent architectural behemoths and mediaeval street patterns. Some special arrangements have been made to enter a few buildings en route. Champagne at the Savoy and lunch in the grandest Elizabethan hall in England are among the treats. But the main point of the day is to provide the satisfaction of accomplishing a unique and fascinating journey through the heart of the most vibrant, varied and fascinating city in Europe. Start: 9.00am, Hyde Park Corner, Wellington Arch. Finish: Tower Hill Station at c. 5.45pm. Price: £180. This includes refreshments and lunch, admission charges and donations. M A R T I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L
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10 London Days second is likely to provoke an unprintable retort from many a daily commuter. However, few would quibble with a statement that the greatest achievements of railway architecture and engineering are Victorian. But seeing and appreciating great stations such as those studied today is to a large extent possible because of enlightened intervention in the last ten or twenty years. The adaptation and upgrading of ageing infrastructure to meet modern requirements has been a major achievement, but so has the restoration and cleaning of historic fabric. And the sensitive addition of new structures of the highest quality of design has been a triumph. Largely the creation of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Paddington is well preserved and in some ways the most appealing of London’s termini. King’s Cross has always been admired for the majesty of its unadorned functionality, but recent removal of twentieth-century clutter enables it to be better appreciated than for a century. And in 2012 the station acquired a magnificent new lattice steel foyer, the widest span in Europe apparently. The 240 ft span of the St Pancras train shed far surpassed any previous structure in the world, and the contiguous Midland Grand Hotel by Sir George Gilbert Scott is perhaps the best-known of all Victorian buildings. Its conversion for use as the Eurostar terminus, completed 2007, created one of the most exciting sets of public spaces in Europe.
London’s Underground Railway
A history & appreciation of the Tube Wednesday 12th November 2014 (lb 199) Wednesday 14th January 2015 (lb 231) Lecturer: Andrew Martin Shanghai has more track, Paris and New York have more stations, but London has by a clear margin the oldest urban underground railway in the world: 2013 was its 150th anniversary. It is also by far the most complicated, having started messily as several independent and often competing enterprises; contrary to sensible practice, strategic planning by unitary municipal government came towards the end of the process, not in advance. Modern London was shaped by the Tube rather than vice versa. Motivation and management has been various: commercial and philanthropic, entrepreneurial and Keynesian, expansionist and defeatist. The first ‘cut and cover’ lines, in trenches Trial trip on the Underground Railway in 1863, wood engraving c. 1880 from Old & New London Vol.V.
Led by a leading authority on 18th–20th-century architecture. Start: 9.30am at Paddington Station. Finish: c. 4.45pm at St Pancras Station. Price: £190. This includes refreshments, lunch, travel by Underground and special arrangements. Group size: maximum 18 participants.
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under existing roads, were vigorously promoted by a socialistic solicitor. The ‘deep level’ tube lines were pushed through by a maverick American, while the suburban extensions between the wars fulfilled the utopian ideals of a dour Yorkshireman who came bitterly to regret the urban sprawl they spawned. Now, after decades of relative neglect, investment and improvement are on an unprecedented scale. The day is led by Andrew Martin, journalist, novelist, historian and author of Underground Overground: a Passenger’s History of the Tube (2012). During the 1990s he was ‘Tube Talk’ columnist for the Evening Standard. He stresses that his approach will not be drily academic or technical but anecdotal and affectionate, highlighting the human stories, the architecture and design, the overlooked detail and the downright odd. Among the places and themes examined are the first ever stations, still in use and little changed; the even earlier Brunel tunnel under the Thames, mother of all modern tunnels, opened 1841; the subtle beauties of Leslie Green’s tiled stations of the early 20th century and the revered modernist architecture of the 1930s; and the architectural bravura of the 1990s Jubilee Line Extension. The day is not all spent below ground, and by special arrangement there is a visit to London Transport’s historic headquarters at 55 Broadway. Start: 9.00am at Baker Street Station. Finish: c. 5.00pm at Canary Wharf (10 minutes from Waterloo). Price: £190. This includes all Tube travel, lunch and refreshments. Group size: maximum 16 participants. Fitness: participants need to be able to cope with busy trains and a considerable time on foot; standing or walking. There are a lot of station steps as well as a flight of 100 which are steep and narrow within 55 Broadway.
View from the front of the National Gallery, drawing c. 1910.
The Italian Renaissance
In the National Gallery Tuesday 4th November 2014 (lb 205) Wednesday 4th February 2015 (lb 237) Lecturer: Dr Antonia Whitley London’s National Gallery possesses the finest collection of Italian Renaissance paintings outside Italy. Unlike most other national collections in Europe, it was formed (over nearly 200 years) by connoisseurs and art historians rather than princes and nobles whose less discerning eyes allowed the admission of a proportion of second- and thirdraters. There’s no dross on show in Trafalgar Square. Antonia Whitley has led numerous tours for Martin Randall Travel, all predominantly with Renaissance subject matter. There are four sessions in the galleries of about an hour each. While most paintings commissioned then were of a religious nature, the call for portraits and mythologies speak of the burgeoning humanistic interests of patrons. Meaning, context, scale and innovation and what it was that marked out images by the great masters in this period will all be considered. Between the sessions there are
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12 London Days leisurely adjournments to the calm and quiet of The National Gallery Dining Rooms, the excellent restaurant. With no more than twelve in the group, radio guides to eliminate problems of audibility, and the presence of an MRT staffer to oversee the arrangements, this should be a highly agreeable and efficacious way to enhance your knowledge and appreciation of Renaissance painting. Start: 10.15am, National Gallery, Sainsbury Wing. Finish: 5.15pm. Price: £180. This includes lunch at the National Restaurant and mid-morning and mid-afternoon refreshments. Group size: maximum 12 participants.
The Genius of Titian The National Gallery & Wallace Collection
Wednesday 19th November 2014 (lb 204) Wednesday 7th January 2015 (lb 226) Lecturer: Sheila Hale Titian’s genius was recognised early in his career, and by the time of his death in his eighties (1576) the esteem in which he was held probably exceeded that attaching to any other living artist in previous history. Moreover, his star has never waned since, contrary to the usual pattern which sees even ‘great’ artists cast into the shadows for a while by the capricious wheel of taste. Such was his prestige that in his maturity rarely did even the grandest of Venetian nobility manage to commission a picture from him, even though Venice was his only long-term place of residence as an adult. Only the greatest elsewhere in Italy were so honoured – the Dukes of Ferrara and Urbino, and the Pope – and, beyond the peninsula, the most powerful rulers in Europe, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and his son Philip II of Spain. It follows that subsequently paintings by Titian were to be found only in the most illustrious princely collections or, when the balance of financial power shifted towards the mercantile and manufacturing nations, in the national galleries only of the most prosperous powers.
The National Gallery, steel engraving c. 1840.
London’s National Gallery has 15 unquestioned Titians, a total exceeded only by the Prado in Madrid and the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna. There is one other on public display in London, Perseus & Andromeda in the Wallace Collection (10–15 minutes away by taxi). Sheila Hale is author of the magisterial and much acclaimed Titian: his Life (2012), the first biographical study of the artist published since 1877. She brings to the day a lifetime’s study of Venice and of the Renaissance. Start: The National Gallery, 10.15am. Finish: Wallace Collection, c. 5.00pm (nearest underground stations Bond Street or Marble Arch). Price: £185, including morning and afternoon refreshments and lunch and a taxi journey. Group size: maximum 12 participants.
Even leaving aside the 3 or 4 which are disputed, M A R T I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L
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Ancient Greece In the British Museum
Thursday, 11 December 2014 (lb 211) Thursday, 22 January 2015 (lb 306) Lecturer: Professor Antony Spawforth A product of the Renaissance and of the Enlightenment, it is appropriate that the British Museum should be housed in a building modelled on Ancient Greek architecture – indeed, it is the grandest example of the Greek Revival in the country. It is equally appropriate that it houses one of the greatest collections of Greek art and artefacts outside Greece, given that the Classical world was the first and for long the primary object of antiquarian study and literary exegesis in Europe. It is the case that Britain had a special if controversial role in the creation of modern Greece. The exceptionally wide range of its holdings enables the day to begin two millennia before the Classical period and to finish with Roman copies of Greek sculpture made hundreds of years after the originals. The day consists of four sessions in the galleries of just over an hour each, with relatively leisurely refreshment breaks.
London Days 13 The first session looks at Minoan and Mycenaean Greece, and at the Geometric and Archaic periods which saw Greek civilisation emerge to greatness again after the mysterious extinction of the earlier civilisations. The second session is largely devoted to the peerless sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens, the so-called Elgin Marbles, famously – infamously – the highlight of the collection, and among the most fascinating and beautiful creations in western art. Lunch is at the British Museum, after which there is a little back-tracking to look at the development of pottery from the Archaic to the Classical periods, almost the only evidence of the glories of Greek painting that remains. Finally comes the Hellenistic period, Alexander the Great and after, especially the remarkable monuments from Lycia, the Nereid Monument and the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. Start: 10.15am. Finish: by 5.30pm. Price: £175. This includes lunch, and mid-morning and mid-afternoon refreshments. Group size: maximum 12 participants.
Early 19th-century engraving of the Parthenon frieze. M A R T I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L
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London Days soon to be launched We are constantly coming up with new ideas for London Days – this is a non-exhaustive list of Days currently being planned:
Memorials of the Great War Great Halls Thameside Country Houses 1930s London The Nude: from Botticelli to CĂŠzanne Great Georgian Houses M A R T I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L
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London Days 2014 & 2015 by date August 2014
December 2014
14th John Nash Dr Geoffrey Tyack................................................ 3
11th Ancient Greece Professor Antony Spawforth.............................. 13
September 2014
January 2015
11th Sculpture in London David Mitchinson................................................ 2
7th The Genius of Titian Sheila Hale.......................................................... 12
16th Stained Glass Peter Cormack...................................................... 4
14th London’s Underground Railway Andrew Martin.................................................. 10
17th Arts & Crafts Michael Hall......................................................... 5
22nd Ancient Greece Professor Antony Spawforth.............................. 13
18th Seven Churches & a Synagogue Jon Cannon........................................................... 5
February 2015
25th Mediaeval Art in London John McNeill......................................................... 4
October 2014
4th The Italian Renaissance Dr Antonia Whitley........................................... 11 5th Great Railway Termini Professor Gavin Stamp........................................ 9
1st ‘Wren’ in the City Professor Gavin Stamp........................................ 6 7th The London Backstreet Walk Giles Waterfield (fully booked)........................... 9 9th Hawksmoor Professor Gavin Stamp........................................ 7 15th The London Backstreet Walk Professor Gavin Stamp (fully booked)................ 9 16th Dixon Jones Jeremy Dixon........................................................ 8 22nd Seven Churches & a Synagogue Jon Cannon........................................................... 5
November 2014 4th The Italian Renaissance Dr Antonia Whitley........................................... 11 6th Great Railway Termini Professor Gavin Stamp........................................ 9 12th London’s Underground Railway Andrew Martin.................................................. 10 19th The Genius of Titian Sheila Hale.......................................................... 12
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