Inspiration in the old

While it's easily acknowledged that history has relevance for the present, and that the work of the past concerning the cultural and artistic productions bequeathed to us still carry value despite and because of their age, it's nonetheless also easily acknowledged that engagement with the past, with that which has gone, is no easy matter. Cue, then, the curatorial turn with exhibitions such as Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art and Beyond Caravaggio, both at London's National Gallery in 2016. In both we see the desire to demonstrate the relevance to our contemporary sensibilities of 'old names', a necessary abandonment of monographic technical explorations of art, and the excitement to be found in their work.

So when I visit Beyond Caravaggio later this year I expect to see appropriate references to the spontaneity and momentary immediacy of his works--that freeze-frame urgency and vivacity--and the dramatic use of light and shadow, for such references to technique would be ill dispensed with, but I am equally prepared for discussions, through juxtaposition with the output of others after him, of how the commitment to the creative enterprise of making a moment a story, of putting to work one's time and gifts led to a commitment of similar magnitude and endeavours of expression at the hands of others. This way, artistic legacies ring true for new audiences, who engage beyond duty: which is to say that more than getting to know and then knowing the past is a virtue of the civilised person (or flâneur), giving the time to know something engenders future creativity. This is a point of freedom and communion across time, rather than a point of hierarchy and individuation as part of a 'society of initiates'.

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