Home
Talks
Venice City of Pictures: Martin Gayford in Conversation
Venice City of Pictures: Martin Gayford in Conversation
Renowned art critic and writer Martin Gayford talks about the history of Venice through its most important creation: pictures. The talk takes us on a visual journey through the history of the city known as ‘La Serenissima’, the ‘Most Serene’. Contrary to the perception of a decaying city, Venice has consistently reinvented itself as a prominent art hub for 500 years.
While native artists like Canaletto and Guardi specialized in capturing the essence of Venice, the city's allure extended beyond its borders. Outsiders including J.M.W. Turner, Claude Monet, John Singer Sargent, Howard Hodgkin and others also contributed their interpretations. In the 17th century, artists such as Rubens, Van Dyck, Inigo Jones and Velàzquez were drawn to Venice to study and draw inspiration from its masterpieces. Nowhere else have so many great artists worked, and nowhere else has been depicted by so many great painters in diverse styles and moods.
Time Period:
Various
Martin Gayford studied philosophy at Cambridge, and art history at the Courtauld Institute of London University. He has written prolifically about art and jazz, contributing regularly to the Daily Telegraph and also to many art magazines and exhibition catalogues. He was art critic of the Spectator 1994-2002 and subsequently of the Sunday Telegraph before becoming chief art critic for Bloomberg News until 2013. He is now once again art critic for the Spectator.
His book about Van Gogh and Gauguin in Arles, The Yellow House (2005) was published in Britain and the USA to critical acclaim, and has been translated to date into five languages.
Constable in Love, a study of John Constable's romance with Maria Bicknell, and their lives between 1809 and 1816 was published in 2009; he was also co-curator with Anne Lyles of the exhibition 'John Constable Portraits' at the National Portrait Gallery and Compton Verney in 2009.
His portrait by Lucian Freud, Man with a Blue Scarf (2005) has been exhibited at the Correr Museum, Venice and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. His book about posing for Lucian Freud, also entitled Man with a Blue Scarf, appeared in 2010.
*A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney *was published in September 2011, and was followed by Michelangelo: His Epic Life in 2013, Rendez-vous with Art in 2014, and co-authored with Philippe de Montebello, the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
A History of Pictures: From Cave to Computer Screen was also co-authored with David Hockney, and was followed by Modernists & Mavericks: Bacon, Freud, Hockney & the London Painters in April 2018.
Dr George Bartlett has worked as an Art Researcher at HENI since 2022. Before HENI, George completed a PhD in Art History at the University of Sussex in 2020 with a thesis on Middle and Late Byzantine art and inscriptions. George has widely taught on Late Antique, Medieval and Byzantine art, including at Sussex, the Courtauld, London School of Mosaic, and West Dean College.
Watch More
Watch More
5:20
Master of Realism: Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait
Martin Gayford presents some of the mysteries behind one of art history’s most recognisable paintings: The Arnolfini Portrait.
12:15
Bridget Riley: The Art of Perception
Discover the origins and evolution of Bridget Riley’s spectacular practice.
12:27
Subversive Dreams under the Soviet Regime: Ilya and Emilia Kabakov
Robert Storr tells the story of an artist couple born under the Soviet Regime.
5:20
Master of Realism: Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait
Martin Gayford presents some of the mysteries behind one of art history’s most recognisable paintings: The Arnolfini Portrait.
12:15
Bridget Riley: The Art of Perception
Discover the origins and evolution of Bridget Riley’s spectacular practice.
12:27
Subversive Dreams under the Soviet Regime: Ilya and Emilia Kabakov
Robert Storr tells the story of an artist couple born under the Soviet Regime.
4.14
What is: Land Art?
Ben Tufnell maps out a definition of Land Art.
10:32
The Secrets of the Witham Shield
Teach your eyes to see the powerful symbols hidden in Celtic designs.
10:58
Maths, Alchemy, Art: The Sculptural Practice of Conrad Shawcross
Discover the mesmerising mathematical phenomenon of moiré in Conrad Shawcross’s monumental works.