How do we look at paintings? Nowadays most of us gaze upon Old Masters in Museums and Art Galleries. We don’t think of why it was painted or where it was to be hung.
Art historian and lecturer Chantal Brotherton
-Ratcliffe opened our eyes on how to look at old paintings the way they would have been seen in the past. Then, people took their time looking at pictures. They would sit and study them closely, even using a magnifying class to see the detail in the canvas, paint and brush strokes. Particularly with small pictures like Frans Van Mieris’ “Portrait of an Artist’s Wife” 1657-8. Other paintings were best seen from a distance to get the full effect. All too often nowadays, we see great works at popular exhibitions through a crowd of people, take a quick photo and move on.
In the 15th-17th Centuries artists painted in daylight and candle light and the pictures were viewed in those lights. No painting was seen in bright electric light or with individual spotlights, which can not only show up the defects in the painting but take away from the desired shadows and light that artists used expressly to enhance a painting, as seen in Caravaggio’s many works or in Brueghel’s Ambrosiana paintings
Where the painting was to be hung, from which angle it would be visible and where the light was to come from, were most important for artists in order to get the perspective right. Commissions for churches might be for shutters over organs, the doors of which would come together to make a whole picture and be seen from a distance, up high. Or to be on side wall, a “lateralo” viewed from an angle as with Tintoretto’s “Christ Washing the Feet” 1575.
Or Veronese’s “Jupiter Expelling the Vices” 1556 which was meant for a ceiling but is currently hung on a wall in the Louvre and loses its effect. Michaelangelo calculated that his Sistine Chapel painting would be viewed from 44 feet away and so over emphasized the muscles on the human bodies.
Paintings have also been taken out of context as with the two portraits by Frans Hals of “Isabella Coymans” and “Stephanus Geraedts” who were husband and wife, but the pictures have been separated which makes each one look a little odd on its own. Taking a painting out of its original frame could change its impact, especially when it had originally hung in a church as with Bellini’s “San Giobbe” 1480 altar piece.
Pictures were also concealed in a boxes with a sliding cover or behind a curtain, the idea being to look at the painting for a short time but regularly, to really appreciate it – particularly a picture of one’s true love! Concealing and revealing was part of the joy of seeing paintings.
Sales of copies too were quite accepted as there were no photos then and it meant that one could enjoy well known works of art from many countries. Pieter Brueghel the Younger made 127 copies of his father’s Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s “Winter Landscape with Skaters and Bird Traps” 1566 and they all sold well. 
So Chantal encouraged us to wear dark glasses, look closely at Old Masters from different angles and spend time doing so to really appreciate them! It was a fascinating and inspiring lecture.
Liz Beecheno