Review of 'The Four Horsemen'

I wrote this review of the NGV's current print exhibition The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Death for the Melbourne Art Network. You can read it in its entirety here:

The ‘Four Horsemen’ exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria draws together a rich, varied and evocative selection of images of death: the horseman crushing rich and poor alike beneath the hooves of his skeletal horse; the shadowy figure stalking the young and the beautiful; the horrors of war; the terrors of the final Apocalypse. The images in this exhibition are a window into a period when belief in the imminence of the Apocalypse was coupled with the more mundane fear of death from disease, accident or war. There is much that still resonates strongly today. We may not fear a religious apocalypse—though the, mostly, tongue-in-cheek panic about the Mayan prediction of the end of the world in 2012 suggests that traditional ideas of the apocalypse still capture our imaginations—but we have our own fears: the sense of the impending doom of climate-change, the fear of our own death or that of our loved ones. This exhibition gives us a chance to reflect on how the ever-present fear of death and disaster was dealt with in Early Modern Europe; it reminds us too that, although much has changed, the fear of brutality and death remains a common preoccupation... CONT.

Regency Conference 8-10 October, Melbourne and Lecture

Another conference and a lecture. Also being held at the University of Melbourne, details below.
As one reader commented on the below post it is a pity that it can be so hard to find out about various events to do with the arts, art history etc. I will try and post them here when I hear about them but it would be good to have something that was more devoted to it. I have a few ideas and am trying to get a sort of arts/art history diary going with another organisation I am part of and will post about it if/when it is up and running. Please leave a comment if you ahve any thoughts on the matter and whether you would be interested in subscribing to something like an arts/art history diary. Also, for now at least, if you know of an event or are organising an event that has anything to do with art, art history, gardens, architecture I would be more than happy to feature it here. Let me know.

But for now here are some upcoming October delights in the are of art and history!

The program and the registration form here.

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Also of interest is this upcoming lecture by Sophie Matthieson (senior curator at the NGV).

Sophie Matthiesson

Curator, International Art, National Gallery of Victoria

Captive Markets: Artists in Prison in the French Revolution

Hundreds of artists found themselves in prison during the French Revolution. While confined surprising numbers resumed painting, sculpting, drawing and even engraving. Few prisons were without some level or artistic production and exchange. Based on unpublished research of French prison archives and prison-made works of art, this lecture addresses some basic questions.

Who were the artists, and why were they imprisoned? What did they make and for whom? Using select case studies, this talk will propose some basic categories and functions of the prison-made object and present a model for its interpretation. It will also consider some of the wider implications of this curious and little-known area of cultural production for our understanding of the political prison in France in the period 1793-5.

Sophie Matthiesson is Curator of International Art at the National Gallery of Victoria. She has taught art history at the universities of Sussex, Manchester and Leeds. Her most recent publications are in the field of British Modernism, Surrealism, and cubism. The topic of the 2009 Margaret Manion lecture is drawn from her doctoral research on the artist in prison in the French Revolution.

6.30pm Tuesday 13 October 2009
Elisabeth Murdoch Theatre
The University of Melbourne

All Welcome

FAN Members Drinks from 6.00pm in foyer. RSVP by Wednesday 7 October: registrar@hildas.unimelb.edu.au

Dinner with the speaker afterwards. Bookings by Wednesday 7 October: registrar@hildas.unimelb.edu.au