Tuesday 18 March 2014

A last minute trip to the Accademia

I am one of the National Gallery's most frequent visitors ( a bold claim) - but I work on Leicester Square and it would seem a near criminal oversight not to call in at lunchtimes. 
So I left the Accademia until last in Venice - I didn't feel like going to a museum. I even bought a ticket after 6pm and calculated on 45 minutes to see all before closing time (after an drink on the rooftop balcony at the hotel).
Thank goodness I went.
Otherwise would not have seen some important paintings: The Dream of Ursula/Carpaccio - John Ruskin's favourite painting, I read - more to research later .... an odd favourite, it seems to me.

 
And Tintoretto's St Mark's Body brought to Venice.



Reading and watching

  • Foot by Foot to Santiago de Compostela/Judy Foot
  • The Testament of Mary with Fiona Shaw at the Barbican
  • The Testament of Mary/Colm Toibin
  • Schwanengesang/Schubert - Tony Spence
  • Journals/Robert Falcon Scott
  • Fugitive Pieces/Ann Michaels
  • Unless/Carol Shields
  • Faust/Royal Opera House
  • The Art of Travel/Alain de Botton
  • Mad Men Series 6
  • A Week at The Airport/Alain de Botton
  • The Railway Man/Eric Lomax
  • Bright Lights, Big City/Jay McInerney
  • Stones of Venice/John Ruskin
  • The Sea, the Sea/Iris Murdoch
  • Childe Harold/Lord Byron
  • All The Pretty Horses/Cormac McCarthy
  • Extreme Rambling/Mark Thomas
  • Story of my Life/Jay McInerney
  • Venice Observed/Mary McCarthy