It seems that the National Gallery is busily knitting threads between all the different London arts. There is the incredible
Metamorphosis: Titian 2012 exhibition which is the product of a successful collaboration between the Royal Ballet, contemporary artists, poets, composers and choreographers. In addition to this, the Gallery has also been encouraging modern writers to consider how they look at and write about art in 'Encounters: Writers on Writing about Art'. The first was by
Edmund de Waal, the second (which I missed) was James Elkins and the final one last night was Hilary Mantel.
Where de Waal used modern, impressionist art to provide a psychological insight into his family history, Hilary Mantel was haunted by the lush materiality of Holbein's 'The Ambassadors'. It was an image that she and her husband took everywhere; a constant link with home and always the first thing on the wall in a new place. She liked to think of Jean de Dinteville and his friend Georges de Selve looking down at sights that they couldn't have possibly imagined and she was inspired by their vital presence and worldly sophistication.
