This year marks the Bicentary of The National Gallery, London. Home to some of the most beautiful and treasured works of art from the Medieval period through to Post-Impressionism, entering the Gallery is akin to stepping back in time to our fascinating past.  We can feel as if we are literally transported not just physcially but also through our senses and ancient memory. 

During this half day visit, we will explore a small selection of paintings starting with the late medieval  period, moving onto renaissance, baroque and romanticism. with an emphasis on the ways in which artists created real and other worlds through the ‘window’ of the panel or canvas. ‘Creating these worlds required a modelling in light and shade and a rediscovery of perspectival depth and space. Bringing into form ideas from the imagination, from literature and from Nature, a painting reveals the work of the artist-alchemist. “Seeing through’ into these new worlds must have seemed nothing short of miraculous.  The works that we will meet each have their own unique qualities;  illuminating; beautiful; mystical; sombre; terrifying even.  Each one evokes and awakens different layers within us, of our emotional, intellectual, imaginative or revelatory ‘seeing’ as alchemy, and that we need both light and dark in its forms for anything to exist at all.