Ulster Museum, Belfast
The year 2024 will go down as a landmark in the long and distinguished history of Belfast’s Ulster Museum. It is the year in which the work of two master artists from different times and different places went on show simultaneously in adjoining galleries.
Sir John Lavery is one of Europe’s most distinguished painters. He was born in Belfast in 1856 and throughout his long professional and creative careers, he travelled widely, always with his painting kit tucked away in his valise.
Michelangelo Merisi, more familiarly known as Caravaggio after the village where he spent his childhood, is one of the outstanding painters in the history of art. In 1601/2, he was commissioned by a Roman nobleman Ciriaco Mattei to paint a pair of religious-inspired works for the family palazzo in Rome.
What a delight, on a glorious spring day, to walk through the the city’s Botanic Gardens to view, side by side, the two Mattei Caravaggios, together with the 70 paintings, assembled from public and private collections, which comprise the Lavery on Location exhibition.
In celebration of the 200th anniversary of London’s National Gallery, a selection of national treasures from its world-famous collection have been loaned to twelve galleries across the UK. The uniting of the original Mattei Caravaggios in Belfast is one of the few occasions that these magnificent works have been brought together since the early 17th century.
The Supper at Emmaus (1601) and The Taking of Christ (1602) remained in the Mattei family for some 200 years. Then, as happens with paintings, they went their separate ways, passing through many hands before ending up, respectively, in London and Dublin.
The latter was discovered by chance, dark and neglected, hanging unnoticed in the dining room of the Jesuit Community in Leeson Street, Dublin. In 1993, after meticulous research, authentication and restoration, it went on public view in the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. Now, more than 400 years after its creation, it has been reunited with its partner, in a unique Irish/UK partnership.
Both paintings show Caravaggio’s mastery of the dramatic moment and his uncanny ability to light a scene, in a cinematic style far ahead of his time.
The Supper at Emmaus takes place after Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, when two disciples set out from Jerusalem for the town of Emmaus. En route, they meet a fellow traveller whom they invite to join them for supper. When the stranger seats himself at the table and blesses the bread, the disciples recognise him as the risen Christ, who has died but remains with them. Their thunderstruck expressions and spontaneous body language tell the viewer all that needs to be known of their delight and astonishment. Meanwhile, the innkeeper, oblivious to the subtext of the situation, looks on questioningly.
The Taking of Christ captures the moment when Judas Iscariot, accompanied by a group of armoured soldiers, betrays Christ with a loving kiss. As he was frequently wont to do, Caravaggio paints a portrait of himself in the crowd, holding the lantern which partially lights this pivotal moment in world history. In contrast with the stress and treachery written across the face of Judas, Christ’s expression speaks of sorrow and resignation, his inverted clasped hands signalling his philosophical acceptance of the prophecy which has guided his life.
The second exhibition provides an entrée into the exotic travels of John Lavery, eloquently capturing the people and places which fuelled his imagination and produced some of his most instantly recognisable works, from The Bridge at Grès, outside Paris to The Walls of Tangier, the so-called ‘white city’, where he had a second home.
Lavery On Location explores key destinations from Morocco and Palm Springs to Lough Derg in County Donegal. It includes studies of Switzerland, France, Ireland and North Africa, as well as evocative cityscapes of Glasgow, Venice, Cannes and New York.
Lavery was an artistic mentor to Winston Churchill, who described him as a ‘plein-airiste (an outdoor painter) if ever there was one’. It is plain from these magnificent works, that Lavery loved to paint in the open air, embedding himself in the places which inspired him and filled him with pleasure. The exhibition is organised in collaboration with the National Gallery of Ireland and National Galleries of Scotland.
National Treasures Caravaggio in Belfast – 10 May to 1 September 2024
Lavery on Location – 23 February to 9 June 2024
The Even Hand 