What makes it clear that one can nevertheless talk about such a thing as the British tradition, is the way that even late 20th-century abstract artists such as Patrick Heron and Howard Hodgkin can trace their roots to the great panjandrum of the watercolour, J.M.W. Turner. In his "colour beginnings" — rapid colour washes that contain the hint of sea, sky and horizon — lie the origins of later artists' enthralment with the decorative and mood-creating effects of pigment-laden water in all its unpredictability. Turner's greatest legacy, as this fascinating and rewarding exhibition makes clear, was not technique (he was famously secretive about his methods) but in the way he took the politeness out of the medium. His boldness proved that Ruskin's "slops" and "clots" were not always something to be tamed but could rather be left to flow free.
The material of painting is also central to Jan Gossaert's Renaissance at the National Gallery. Traditionally, oil painting was invented in northern Europe as early as the 12th century, and was adopted only later in Italy, where most paintings well into the 15th century were executed in egg tempera. What headed in the opposite direction was the rediscovery of classical antiquity and its attendant humanism — the great themes of the Italian Renaissance. The figure who linked the two was Jan Gossaert, also known as Mabuse, c.1478-1532.
Little is known about the life of Gossaert. He was born a generation after the great pioneers of Netherlandish painting, Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, but still his paintings mirrored the founding fathers' fascination with architectural settings, rich fabrics, a miniaturist's technique and a subject matter that comprised exclusively either religious scenes or portraits.
In 1508, Gossaert accompanied his patron Philip of Burgundy to Italy on a mission to Rome and brought back with him two motifs in particular, the nude and classical architecture. In introducing them into northern art, he was a transitional artist. His attempts at southern corporeality are not always successful (his flesh has an uncomfortable sheen, meant to mimic marble) but nudes such as "Hercules and Deianira" (1517), "Adam and Eve" (1520) and "Danaë" (1527) opened the way to a less ascetic and pinched-cheeked aesthetic. His portraits though are wonderfully nuanced and finely observed.
This exhibition uses Gossaert as a peg from which to hang a clutch of superlative northern artists including Van Eyck, Petrus Christus, Dirk Bouts, Gerard David and the peerless Memling. In almost all the carefully selected examples there are little hints of the mental world of Italy — be it a pose borrowed from an Italian print, a classical reference or a pagan frieze. For all the give and take, however, this show is really a tale of two Renaissances and a reconfirmation that while the northern version may not have been as grand as the southern it was every bit as rich.
