'Devotion By Design' at The National Gallery

I went to see the 'Devotion by Design' exhibition at The National Gallery this afternoon. It's free to get into the exhibition in the space underneath the Sainsbury Wing and it's well worth visiting if you like 15th Century art.

The exhibition fills about 6 rooms or so with a video about the exhibition on loop in the small cinema next door. The exhibition is dimly lit to try to re-create the atmosphere and lighting of the paintings when they were originally on display - in other words, dim churches lit solely by random streams of sunlight and candles. It's a hymn of praise to the altarpiece, both full sized altarpieces and fragments from altarpieces, including a couple that we could walk behind to see how the panels are physically held together.

It's not a major exhibition with illuminating pieces but, for me, it introduced me to two small works by Fra Angelico that I've never seen other than in books or online. The two pieces are in the National Gallery collection (one on loan from Her Majesty) but are not on display in the main galleries. The first is 'Blessing Redeemer', a small piece that is probably the top of an altarpiece made of lots of panels, a Christ figure holding a book open at the Alpha/Omega page. It's probably something like 8" or 9" high with a bright starburst behind Christ which you can't really see in this photo. I can't decide if his robe is deep, dark purple or brown - in this photo it looks brown but I'm not sure. The frame draws to a point at the top above Christ's head and you can see the outline of that in this photo.

The second piece was a small depiction of Saint Romulus, about %2 square and remarkably similar in design to the painting of 'Saint Alexander' that I saw in the Met in New York earlier this year. Although he's clean shaven, the slight colouring of his chin makes me think he needs a shave - is this the Good Brother trying for realism? Whichever, it's a lovely little painting and it's nice to see it at last. I wonder why Fra Angelico paints the Bible with a red cover - he does that in several paintings.

I said farewell to the exhibition and walked up three flights of stairs to visit the lovely San Domenico Fiesole altarpiece in the main collection. It's always worth seeing this glory in the flesh and I see new details each time I see it. It's all down to Fra Angelico's glorious vision.