In Depth:  Anne Roberts

THE NORTHERN RENAISSANCE — DURER TO HOLBEIN

Venue: The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London

The title of this exhibition derives from the huge triptych painted in the last decade of John Martin’s life, which became his most famous achievement — visions of the ‘The Last Judgment’, ‘The Great Day of His Wrath’ and ‘The Plains of Heaven’.

Martin, a younger contemporary of Turner and Constable, was born in 1789, the year of the French Revolution, in Haydon Bridge, near Hexham. Much of the awe-inspiring scenery in his work reflects the wildness of the Northumbrian crags, where man is dwarfed by the elements, as well as by the iron furnaces of the Tyne Valley — a sight completely new in the early industrial revolution.

Constable with church connections

CONSTABLE AND SALISBURY

The soul of landscape

The Royal Academy is currently showing the biggest exhibition of Van Gogh’s paintings, drawings and letters to held in London for over 40 years.

2010 is the centenary of the first Post Impressionist exhibition to be held in England, which included 22 Van Goghs. Prior to 1910, no major paintings by Van Gogh had been seen in this country. Post Impressionism came as a shock to art lovers who had grown up with Victorian narrative painting, and the London press’s reaction to Van Gogh’s work was particularly hostile.

Any visit to a major art gallery is an important educational experience: it raises our awareness of artists’ work, and the context in which their ideas were formed.

For big exhibitions at institutions such as Tate Modern or the National Gallery, a well-oiled machine swings into action, with audio guides and introductory leaflets, followed up by an enticingly beautiful illustrated catalogue with scholarly articles. Before the opening, a press viewing will have ensured that the work has been discussed by critics from national newspapers and magazines. But, conversely, those who are not included among art’s chosen elite are also airbrushed out of the discussion and publications.

The Royal Academy’s current exhibition of the work of the German painter Lucas Cranach is a rare opportunity to study the career of an artist who became one of the best known propagandists for the Protestant Reformation

Very few details survive of Cranach’s early life. A near contemporary of Holbein, he was born in 1472 in Kronach, southern Germany – the town from which he took his name. It is known that by his late 20s he was working in Vienna, where he received commissions from distinguished scholars and humanists, whose recommendations would have advanced his career.

The decision to run a week’s studio-based art course at WYSOCS (the West Yorkshire School of Christian Studies) arose out of conversations following a day of art lectures in the summer of 2006.

There have been many opportunities for Christian art students to listen to good speakers, and to see some excellent work by practitioners — but, since the 1980s, when students used to draw and paint together at John Stott’s cottage in Wales, ‘The Hooksies’, there have been hardly any workshop situations where Christians could work out together in practical terms what it means to respond to God’s creation around us.

Tate Britain’s exhibition of Hogarth’s paintings and prints (February 7 to April 29 2007) gives us a vivid depiction of the society in which Wesley, Whitefield and the 18th century evangelists ministered.

This was a period when the church was in a weakened state, still suffering from the silencing of many good ministers following the Great Ejection of 1662.

Tate Britain is currently showing a major exhibition, ‘Holbein in England’, which includes the artist’s work from 1526-8 — the period of his first visit — and from 1532 to his death in 1543.

Holbein is the best known of many emigre artists and craftsmen who made their way to England during the period of the Reformation.

SAMUEL PALMER – VISION AND LANDSCAPE

The British Museum

A visit to the National Gallery's exhibition of Aelbert Cuyp (1620-91) is an experience of calm pleasure - these peaceful sunlit paintings of the Dutch landscape hold no hint of conflict or foreboding.

So it is difficult to realise that they were painted towards the end of a long and bitter struggle for the survival of the Dutch nation - and that the centre of that struggle was the theology of the Reformation.

1997 is the 500th anniversary of the birth of Hans Holbein the Younger - whose images of the Tudor Court, especially his full-length portraits of Henry VIII, have become virtually part of our national consciousness.

When Holbein first visited England, at the age of 29, he was already a leading painter and engraver in the Swiss city of Basel, which was rapidly becoming a centre for the Reformation.