“LOOKING SIDEWAYS”
Sir Gabriele Finaldi: A Life In Paintings
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Building Shows, Building Arguments: Titian and the “Impossible Exhibition” One of Finaldi’s proudest achievements is a show that began improbably and ended in triumph. Entitled ‘Titian: Love, Desire Death’ it focused on the artist’s sensuous interpretation of classical myths of love, temptation and punishment. The six paintings were commissioned by Prince Philip of Spain, the future King Philip II. When they started planning, Finaldi says, they assumed they might borrow four of the artist’s works “if we were lucky.” Then circumstances shifted: a painting surfaced in the Duke of Wellington’s collection; the Wallace Collection changed its constitution to allow loans and suddenly, the impossible became real. It mattered, he says, not only for spectacle but for scholarship. Even Philip II himself saw those paintings together for “probably no more than 20 years” before they were dispersed. The Rehang: Tradition, “Looking Sideways,” and the Director’s Burden When Finaldi became director of the National Gallery, he inherited something far less tangible than paintings: public expectations. The Gallery housed not just a national collection but also a national habit. People don’t only visit; they return, and they carry in their heads a map of where everything ‘should’ be. He is “hugely respectful,” he says, of those who loved the Gallery “looking a certain way” and he certainly wanted to incorporate the “traditional itinerary” through the History of Art chronologically and regionally. However, he also saw opportunities “to cut through that” at moments by using a thematic approach to form what he calls “episodes across the gallery.” One of his examples is the still-life rooms, where you can see the genre’s development from early 17th century beginnings through to late Monet – a way of telling a story not simply by date but by subject. It is, he suggests, a means of making artistic decisions more visible. “I think there’s a lot to be said for looking sideways,” he says, “as well as looking forward or backwards.” Looking sideways means seeing contemporaries in different places, or artists working in the same genre across centuries, comparisons that reveal choice. Does he see it as his responsibility to reshape the relationship between observer and artwork? “Yes,” he says, simply. And then he adds the nuance: “you must carry the past with you – the Gallery’s history, the way it has told its story – but also keep creating new conversations between works”. He gives a vivid example in the Central Hall, which displays full-length portraits from Veronese to Sargent. Seen singly, they are portraits. Seen together, they
become an argument about format and power: “you only get the sense of that being a very important format for artists when you look at it across time.” The One Painting He’d Save: A Cup of Water and the End of the World At some point, every conversation with an art director inevitably turns to which picture would you save from a fire? Finaldi’s answer is revealing because it is not a trophy, not a masterpiece in the traditional sense. It is not the Rembrandt he would show the Dulwich College pupils, even though “it would be very nice to have.” He would take something smaller, something personal, something he helped bring into the collection. He chooses a painting by Zurbarán: “a still life of a cup of water on a silver plate with a rose is the simplest selection of objects but presented with the sharpness of vision that Zurbarán brings to the subject. And yet at the same time the objects, in their ordinariness, hint at metaphysical themes. It is a small painting that packs a great punch and has been tremendously influential since it entered the collection in the mid-1990s”.
Sometimes, he suggests, ‘making use of it’ means not asking people to come to the pictures but taking pictures to people. He cites a striking example of taking the Gallery’s Artemisia Gentileschi’s self-portrait as St Catherine ‘on tour’, travelling to unexpected places that included a school in the north of England, a women’s library, a women’s prison, even a doctor’s surgery. It is an approach that matches his belief in the object itself: if you want people to feel art is theirs, you must let it share their space. The Future: The Domani Project Finaldi is aware of the need to constantly think ahead, whether that is the collection, the audience, the buildings, or even the research and teaching opportunities. One long term plan, ‘Project Domini’ is to redevelop St Vincent’s House, an office space behind the National Gallery. Building work is due to start in around a year. The new wing will “enable us to tell the story of painting in a more complete way, from its origins in the 13th century right through to the present day”. Very much aware of the National’s informal agreement with its sister gallery, the Tate, he emphasises the proposed focus on painting in the Western tradition continuing from Van Gogh and late Monet to Picasso, Matisse and all the way through the 20th century. The Lesson He Wants Students to Take Away: Dissolving the Barrier If you return to that opening scene, Finaldi in front of Rembrandt with Dulwich College students, the question becomes: what does he want them to feel as they return to the College after their visit? First, he says, he wants to “dissolve the barriers” that arise when you face something from another time. The method is not through lecturing but to begin with what they already know. “I would want them to begin to feel familiar with the image, and then gradually through context, intention and craft, to draw attention to what
Pictures for “the Use of the Public”: Audience, Access, and Going Beyond the Building For a director, the paintings are only half the story. The other half is the audience — and the moral weight that comes with being the National Gallery rather than merely a famous one. “We want of course to attract everyone. Entry is free and the building is right in the heart of London”. He sees those as strengths – “easy to get here,” easy to pass the threshold.” Yet he is most interested in the harder task: building a relationship with people who live in the UK, who can return, who can make the visit habitual. And then beyond that – reaching those who tend not to visit art galleries at all. The Gallery’s founders, he notes, called it “a collection of pictures for the use of the public.” The phrasing is old-fashioned, but the purpose is never more relevant. The collection is here; it is “pretty amazing”, you really should make use of it.
all images © National Gallery, London.
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