Lunchtime Talk: Venice – City of Pictures with Martin Gayford
24 May @ 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm
Art critic Martin Gayford takes the Bath Festival on a compelling visual journey through five centuries of the city known for centuries as ‘La Serenissima’ – in this captivating talk for lovers of Venice and of its art.
Enchanting, captivating, precious – Venice is one of the most cherished cities in the world. For centuries it was the heart of a global maritime power and a crossroads for diverse cultures. Today the city attracts millions of visitors each year, enticed by its irresistable beauty. Art lovers are drawn here by the paintings, prints, drawings, and films made by generations of artists who have captured its magical allure. It is through images both of the city and are created there that Venice’s identity has been foraged and spread so powerfully.
Venice was a major centre of art in the Renaissance: the city where the medium of oil on canvas became the norm. The achievements of the Bellini brothers, Vittore Carpaccio, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese are key parts of this story. Nowhere else has been depicted by so many great painters in so many diverse styles and moods. Venetian views were a speciality of native artists such as Canaletto and Francesco Guardi, but the city has also been represented by outsiders: William Turner, Claude Monet, John Singer Sargent, Howard Hodgkin, and many more.
Then some came to look at and write about art. The reactions of Henry James, George Eliot, Richard Wagner, and others enrich this tale. Nor is the story over. Since the advent of the Venice Biennale in the 1890s, the city has become a shop window for the contemporary art of the whole world.
‘[A] tour de force saga of the lives of Venetian painters and of visiting artists… Gayford is a marvellous writer’ – Art Eyewitness
The Bath Festival
Celebrating music and literature, the Bath Festival fills the city with melodies and excitement.
