Somerset House's Courtauld Gallery

 So although it's Christmas break still finding some reasons to carry on Arty engagements.

Somerset House & Christmas Tree

After more than 3 years the Courtauld Gallery has reopened and it was good to get back there and be reminded of the fine selection of (principally) paintings.

The Courtauld is particularly strong on French Artists and it is good to see some of the lesser known works of Seurat, I remember that when I visited the Bridget Riley exhibition at the Hayward Gallery there was an area of Bridget's exhibition that showed some of her work from when she was studying and Seurat was one of her strong influences.


One of the pictures by Seurat on show was The Angler  - it is small and understated (as many of his work are) but nonetheless charming.

The Angler


Edward Degas is also represented well at the Gallery in sculpture as well as two dimensional work - here is 'Dancer ready to dance Right Foot Forward '



The works are not solely French and I was drawn to this The Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr from the Workshop of Giovanni Bellini.



What I liked about this painting was the piece of sky that permeated the background. 

'From the Workshop of'  means that a particular group of young artists are working to an established artist  in this case Giovanni Bellin the work on show at the Courtauld is of the same subject as the National Gallery has  by the artist himself and I shall try to see this.

The Courtauld has a very well curated appearance and a fine collection of inspiring drawings  - here's a work by Henri Michaux from 1957 commonly known as Mescalin Drawing.




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