The Sainsbury Wing: Re-Open & Re-Hang, the National Gallery, London
Well hung....
Some have carped the new entry space is airport-like, lamenting the loss of the Wing’s previous church crypt qualities - low ceilings, gloomy, gothic and cold.
And I will admit - awkward as it was, it was more characterful.
However for most people this revamp will be an improvement. The doors open to a spacious, airy lobby before leading you up some wide stairs to a wholly re-hung and re-decorated set of gallery rooms that feature paintings from circa 1300 to 1500.
Inviting and damn tasteful. The foyer's basalt black replaced by beige marble; the gallery walls a shade of grey that is beyond Farrow&Ball; the contrasting highlights harmoniously darker; the lighting elegant and refined.
And the pictures themselves, frankly, they are breathtaking. They are all here, the Cranochs and Francescas, the van der Wydens and the van Eycks, the Boschs, Bruegels and Holbeins. More on them later.
The re-hang itself, well, that has bowed to the modern trope of grouping by category rather than linear travel. It works - sections called Gold; Wonders of Design; and Looking at Nature.
However - and no getting away from it - it is art history dumbed down. No longer is conceptual progression - often tricky to follow - tolerated. Instead this is children's book stuff, paintings across the two centuries grouped by catchy classification, a(nother) triumph of entertainment over enlightenment. Which is a bit ironic, given the obvious. Here’s the sort of thing in question:
Hey-ho, off we go into la la land.
Does it matter? For the most part - and for most people - no. This is a lovely place to be. And the pictures themselves, well, they are staggering artistic achievements, the work of brilliant painters who painted with brilliant precision.
Inevitably, given the period, pretty much all the pictures are a) religious (Marys and Magdalens, Baby Jesuses and the crucified saviour, saints and posh religious clerics) or b) portraits of the upper crust posing in their finest clobber, most of the time looking out sternly out (casting a critical eye at the peasantry - then and now - passing by?).
Here are some of my highlights:
I mean, what is not to like?
The Sainsbury Wing re-vamp is the final hurrah of a spectacular year at the National Gallery celebrating its’ 200th birthday, and they have done it in style - this, the Sienna, the Van Gogh, the Velasco: money well spent.
And talking of money a word about Sainsburys. Big Supermarket is a major cause of our dysfunctional, dying countryside - but this building was paid for and then given to the nation by three brothers – John, Simon and Timothy Sainsbury – and over the past 20 years it has offered millions of visitors a place see the National Gallery’s outstanding collection of early Renaissance paintings. It is a contribution possibly unmatched in our history (if you discount those two great collectors, Charles II and George IV).
And in Norwich their uncle, Sir Robert, and his wife, Lady Lisa, created one of Britain’s most non-conformist art collections which transcended traditional barriers between art, architecture, archaeology and anthropology, and then gave it to the University of East Anglia.
Housed in Sir Norman Foster’s revolutionary first ever public building, The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts was one of the first museums to display art from all around the globe and from all time periods equally and collectively. Now one of the country's most delightful museum spaces, the Sainsbury Centre is under the directorship of the iconoclastic Jago Cooper (who used to present shows for me on BBC Four - go, Jago!)
So, the Sainsbury Wing - worth an afternoon visit. Just bring a History of Art book with you. And then make the trip east to Norwich to see a rather less traditional gallery, albeit just as brilliant.
I think the accompanying texts are well written but I agree about the hang and the tendency to group things by 'theme' rather than year. Or century.