It is a once-in-a-lifetime experience: the chance to see one of the greatest -- and most fragile -- works of European art before your very eyes. The illustrated manuscript known as the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry contains images that have shaped our view of the late Middle Ages, but it's normally kept under lock and key at the Château de Chantilly, north of Paris. It's only been exhibited twice in the past century. Now newly restored, the glowing pages of Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry are on show to the public for just a few months. "Approche, approche," the Duke of Berry's usher tells the visitors to the great man's table for the feast that will mark the start of the New Year. It's also your invitation to examine closely the illustration for January, one of the 12 months from the calendar in this Book of Hours -- a collection of prayers and other religious texts -- that form the centrepiece of this exhibition in Chantilly. It's su...
Nearly everyone knows something of the story of the Trojan Horse -- how the Greeks hid soldiers inside a cunningly constructed giant wooden horse and tricked the people of Troy, with whom they'd been at war for years, into bringing it into their city, leading to its downfall.
The legend surrounding Troy and the Trojan war has endured for thousands of years, though in these modern times, when the study of the classics is not that common -- and there are so many other stories competing for our attention -- the characters and their exploits are likely to be rather hazy for many of us, once we've got past the horse, of course.
Troy: Myth and Reality at the British Museum in London seeks to put flesh on the bones of the myths, to find out the truth underlying the legend, and to show how it's inspired artists down the centuries. Does it succeed? Some bits of it do. But it has to be said that unless you're already pretty well up on your Greek and Roman gods and heroes, you may find the mass of plots and subplots a bit complicated to get your head round, however good the explanations on offer, as you're whirled through the tales of the Judgement of Paris, Helen of Troy, Ajax and Achilles and the Odyssey.
These are familiar names to art-goers, but the context behind them often escapes you as you view pictures in a museum or gallery. Those stories become clearer during this show, and the curators do introduce the cast at the beginning. But there are an awful lot of names to absorb, and there are times during this exhibition when it feels like you're looking at yet another news report on a bloody, long-running yet far-away conflict and you can't remember, for the umpteenth time, who's on which side.
Perhaps, though, we're getting too worked up about the intricacies of the plot. Maybe we should just let ourselves be immersed by the sights and sounds of this show and appreciate the art that Troy has inspired down the millennia. Take this amphora, for example, made in Athens more than 25 centuries ago by the vase-painter Exekias. The Greek hero Achilles is depicted as he kills Penthesilea, the queen of the Amazon warriors fighting on the side of Troy. And just as he deals her the fatal blow, their eyes meet, and he falls in love with her....
Things liven up with a look at how the legend of Troy was perceived in the Middle Ages, with Europeans, like the Romans, inventing new mythical characters to link their origins back to the ancient city. Troy is portrayed in medieval manuscript illustrations as looking very Western, all turrets and castellations, and indeed it was also the subject of the very first book printed in English, in 1473 -- The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye.
As we move into the Renaissance and later, there's a selection of paintings and sculptures inspired by the Trojan story. But frankly, there's not much in here that sticks long in the memory. The poster image, though, is the stunning early 19th-century sculpture by Filippo Albacini of The Wounded Achilles from Chatsworth House. Achilles had been rendered almost invulnerable because his mother had dipped him into the River Styx as an infant, holding him only by one of his heels. And that's where he's been hit by the arrow that will kill him.
There's a succession of paintings here, but we didn't find any that really invited us to linger long. There's one amusing alternate version, though, of the Judgement of the Trojan prince Paris as to which of three goddesses was the most beautiful. In Hans Eworth's depiction, Elizabeth I is asked to adjudicate, and she awards the prize to herself.
Perhaps one of the most striking pictures is this very late 19th-century Clytemnestra by John Collier. Clytemnestra murdered her husband Agamemnon on his return from Troy in revenge for his sacrifice of their daughter. The jewellery and decor are based on archaeological finds, but the attention is all on those staring eyes and the blood dripping from the axe.
This really is rather an ambitious exhibition, but we have to say we felt it was a bit of a slog. As with Inspired by the East, the show elsewhere in the British Museum about how the Islamic world influenced the West, we found that quite a few of the exhibits on show weren't really that memorable. We came out feeling we had sat through a triple classics lesson on a Friday afternoon. Epic, certainly, but not always in a good way.
Exhibition view
Roman bust of Homer, 100-200 AD, copy of original dating from 200-100 BC, British Museum
Priam and Achilles, Roman silver cup, 1st century AD, National Museum of Denmark. Photo: Roberta Fortuna and Kira Ursem © National Museet Denmark
Filippo Albacini, The Wounded Achilles, 1825, Chatsworth House. Photo © The Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth. Reproduced by permission of Chatsworth Settlement Trustees
The legend surrounding Troy and the Trojan war has endured for thousands of years, though in these modern times, when the study of the classics is not that common -- and there are so many other stories competing for our attention -- the characters and their exploits are likely to be rather hazy for many of us, once we've got past the horse, of course.
Troy: Myth and Reality at the British Museum in London seeks to put flesh on the bones of the myths, to find out the truth underlying the legend, and to show how it's inspired artists down the centuries. Does it succeed? Some bits of it do. But it has to be said that unless you're already pretty well up on your Greek and Roman gods and heroes, you may find the mass of plots and subplots a bit complicated to get your head round, however good the explanations on offer, as you're whirled through the tales of the Judgement of Paris, Helen of Troy, Ajax and Achilles and the Odyssey.
These are familiar names to art-goers, but the context behind them often escapes you as you view pictures in a museum or gallery. Those stories become clearer during this show, and the curators do introduce the cast at the beginning. But there are an awful lot of names to absorb, and there are times during this exhibition when it feels like you're looking at yet another news report on a bloody, long-running yet far-away conflict and you can't remember, for the umpteenth time, who's on which side.
Perhaps, though, we're getting too worked up about the intricacies of the plot. Maybe we should just let ourselves be immersed by the sights and sounds of this show and appreciate the art that Troy has inspired down the millennia. Take this amphora, for example, made in Athens more than 25 centuries ago by the vase-painter Exekias. The Greek hero Achilles is depicted as he kills Penthesilea, the queen of the Amazon warriors fighting on the side of Troy. And just as he deals her the fatal blow, their eyes meet, and he falls in love with her....
There's lots of amphorae, lots of urns, lots of dishes on show in the first half of this exhibition, taking us through the story of the Trojan war. Not all of them are as easy to decipher as the one with Achilles and Penthesilea. The curators use projections and highlighting to try to pick out the key images, a technique that worked astoundingly well on flat friezes in the museum's exhibition about the bloodthirsty yet cultured Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, a year ago. This time round, it's less successful. It's really quite difficult to make out the details on a bowl spotlit from above and in a glass case some distance from you.
The legend of Troy was part of a long tradition of oral storytelling, but it was Homer, revered by the Greeks as the author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey sometime between 800 BC and 600 BC, who's the best-known early narrator of the tale. Almost nothing is known about him, if indeed he actually existed. But sculptors imagined him for wealthy clients, in this case as an old, blind man with weathered features and flowing hair.
What's truly astonishing is how widespread this story became in the ancient world. The Roman poet Virgil linked the foundation of Rome to the fall of Troy in his epic, the Aeneid. And this Roman silver cup, depicting Achilles and King Priam of Troy, ended up in present-day Denmark (never part of the Roman empire), where it was dug up from a chieftain's grave.
Once we get past the artefacts from the ancient world, the exhibition looks at the archaeology of Troy, and the excavations carried out by the German businessman Heinrich Schliemann in his bid to rediscover the city. Schliemann was a wheeler-dealer rather than a proper archaeologist and seems to have destroyed as much as he uncovered. There's a fascinating tale to be told here, but you're not going to find it in this exhibition, with a tediously and confusingly presented procession of pots.
Things liven up with a look at how the legend of Troy was perceived in the Middle Ages, with Europeans, like the Romans, inventing new mythical characters to link their origins back to the ancient city. Troy is portrayed in medieval manuscript illustrations as looking very Western, all turrets and castellations, and indeed it was also the subject of the very first book printed in English, in 1473 -- The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye.
As we move into the Renaissance and later, there's a selection of paintings and sculptures inspired by the Trojan story. But frankly, there's not much in here that sticks long in the memory. The poster image, though, is the stunning early 19th-century sculpture by Filippo Albacini of The Wounded Achilles from Chatsworth House. Achilles had been rendered almost invulnerable because his mother had dipped him into the River Styx as an infant, holding him only by one of his heels. And that's where he's been hit by the arrow that will kill him.
Perhaps one of the most striking pictures is this very late 19th-century Clytemnestra by John Collier. Clytemnestra murdered her husband Agamemnon on his return from Troy in revenge for his sacrifice of their daughter. The jewellery and decor are based on archaeological finds, but the attention is all on those staring eyes and the blood dripping from the axe.
Practicalities
Troy: Myth and Reality is on at the British Museum in London until March 8 and is open daily from 1000 to 1730, with lates on Fridays to 2030. Full-price tickets are £20 during the week or £22 at weekends and are bookable online here. The museum entrance is on Great Russell St, with Holborn and Tottenham Court Road the nearest Tube stations.Images
Achilles kills the Amazon queen Penthesilea, Athenian amphora, c. 530 BC. © The Trustees of the British MuseumExhibition view
Roman bust of Homer, 100-200 AD, copy of original dating from 200-100 BC, British Museum
Priam and Achilles, Roman silver cup, 1st century AD, National Museum of Denmark. Photo: Roberta Fortuna and Kira Ursem © National Museet Denmark
Filippo Albacini, The Wounded Achilles, 1825, Chatsworth House. Photo © The Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth. Reproduced by permission of Chatsworth Settlement Trustees
John Collier, Clytemnestra, 1882, Guildhall Art Gallery, City of London
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