Jackie Wullschläger’s most outstanding aspects of the Rehang of the National Gallery

This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s London guide

The London National Gallery, although smaller than some European museums, has a very wide and pleasant collection, with all the main names of art to the twentieth century, from Leonardo to Picasso. Some famous works, “Arnolfini’s marriage”, “The Fighting Temeraire”, “Gunflowers”, are destination paintings; They often overlook others so beautiful and interesting. When making a personal selection, I excluded the 36 outstanding aspects defined by the galleryassuming that visitors for the first time will initially look for them. My options include some of the best paintings ever made and less known that captivate me. I have mapped an approximately chronological route, but not two visitors really take the same path; The joy is to get lost in the magnificent maze of possibilities of the gallery.

Andrea di Boniauto, ‘The Virgin and the Child with Ten Saints’1365-70

The first paintings of the Renaissance are the glory of the Wing of Sainsbury, designed as a modern reinvention of ecclesiastical architecture for which most of these works were made. The 11 panels of Boniauto evoke precisely the church of Santa María Novella, and were painted as a visual map. Mary and Jesus are at the top of the central arch and, each in their own column niches and jewels, which develop in architectural order, are the 10 saints to whom a chapel in the vast church is dedicated, all delicately individualized.

Bertolmé Bermejo, ‘St Michael triumphs over the devil’, 1468

The brilliant new Sainsbury Wing “Gold” Thematic Gallery (Room 64) stars Bermejo’s angel Swooping, the only Spanish Renaissance painting in Great Britain. The body of the saint is curved in one direction, its crimson layer in the other multicolored wings is triggered, the golden bib reflects a thorough Jerusalem, the pale oval face is both more in the world and fierce. Attacking Michael’s feet, the demon/dragon/bloody eye fish brings a comedy splash to this intense vision of justice and protection. The dynamism of Bermejo and the brilliant Manichaean theatricality demonstrate how brilliant the Spanish Spanish art has always been.

Raphael, ‘Pope Julio II’1511-12

The central piece of the exhibition of gallery 2 dedicated to “power, sponsorship and politics” in the Renaissance, this is the portrait of fundamental power in European art. There is an excellent feeling of being in the presence of the old Pontiff, called Pope Guerrero. Everything is strong and ceremonial: deep vibrant colors, possess front, strong curtain, thick rings), but the paint is also intimate, we feel the fragility of Julius. After his death, according to Giorgio Vasari, the portrait “was so realistic and true that he scared everyone.”

Moretto da Brescia, ‘Portrait of a young man’, 1540-5

Among many stunners in the portrait room of Renaissance 4 is the youth type of Moretto for all time: the languid intellectual, charming, lost in thought, using his heart if not in his manga and then in his hat, his badge reading “Ah, I long for so strong.” This is Fortunato Martinengo, who founded the “Accademia del Dubbiosi” of Brescia, the Academy of Dumadores, to discuss humanistic ideas. His wealth is not in doubt: the opulent Leopard of the Nieves aligning his dress rivals the sumptuous fur in the famous “The Ambassadors” of Holbein in the same room.

Tiziano, Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto, 1556-59

The new gallery dedicated to Titian (Sala 8), one of the great earnings of the Rehang, contains the most enthusiastic paintings of the entire collection, the couple “Diana and Actaeon” and “Diana and Callisto”, connected by a luminous landscape shared with a bubble current between them. For its pictorial eloquence, unite the form and narrative, the feeling that everything changed and dissolves in the flickering brush as it does in the cruel history of passion, fate, innocence punished, these images opened a new secular expressiveness. By campaigning for his acquisition in 2009, Lucian Freud called them “simply the most beautiful photos in the world.”

Poussin, Landscape with a man killed by a snake, 1648

Paussin Classicisto great may seem distant today, but “landscape with a man killed by a snake” clung to the restriction with which he invites us to track a Zigzag of looks shocked in an idyllic scene. A man, seeing a corpse intertwined with a fat snake, flees from horror; Alarmed, a laundry shows its arms in sight, but does not see the body; A fisherman only sees the scared woman. The drama is the penetrating realization of the death that lurks within the beauty of nature.

Rembrandt, ‘Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels’, 1654-6

Holding among the great religious dramas in the Rembrandt Gallery (Sala 22), this informal, tender and subtly eroticized portrait hypnotizes. The Rembrandt lover is half a dress, the soft meat of its breasts and neck increased by its jewels, the splinter of a silk chemistry and the wrapping of loose skins that hang loose and loose. With huge black eyes and an incomparable expression between uncertainty and familiarity, spontaneity and seriousness, the artist looks frankly, and us.

Joseph Wright, “An experiment in a bird in the air pump”, 1768

Will the panic cacatúa pant by live air or will die? The way in which we commit ourselves to the perspective of his death is the theme of this mysteriously convincing scene in the light of the candles (room 34), animated by so many contrasts: pools of light and deep darkness, the child who cannot stand to look and the dispassionately curious adults, the person of the central figure as part of the romantic magician, part of a scientific pioneer. Wright, the first painter of the industrial revolution, seems to warn about the dangers of an emotionally separated scientific society to come.

Monet, ‘Snow scene in Argenteuil’, 1875

Gallery 46, dedicated to Monet of the late era (his work between 1890-1917, including many water lilies) is an unmissable maximum of the Rehang, but in the early printing room 41 the youngest monet water paintings in all forms: sea, river, steam, snow, snow are also a joy. Here it evokes sensations of cold and sharp air, cushioned sounds, thick snow that crosses under our feet, envelops us in the atmosphere of a winter afternoon in a suburb of Paris while the sun, which still throws a pink shine, begins to fade and the fog covers the buildings.

Ferdinand Hodler, ‘The Kien Valley with the Bluemlisalp massif’, 1902

Among the modernizers of Gallery 44, Seurat, Cuzanne, Picasso, is the representation of Hodler of the Bernese Alps near his home, rejecting the traditional Swiss picturesque in favor of the reduced geometric structure and an excitingly compressed space. The sunk views of Hodler, the crystalline color and the decorative pattern create a fresh and elegant landscape; Acquired in 2022, it is a wonderful proof that the National Gallery continues to grow and change.

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