Lorenzo Lotto, 'Marsilio Cassotti and his Wife Faustina', 1523 © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

"...when the hype subsides - it is our inner essence that will continue to tell our stories."

More Than Pretty Faces:
Renaissance Faces Exhibition, National Art Gallery, London
Words by Zarina Holmes

My visit to Renaissance Faces exhibition was unplanned. That Sunday afternoon it was too late for me to make it to Frieze Art Fair at Regent’s Park.

The experience was refreshing. At the time when London is gasping for oxygen from the credit crunch headlines, it gave me a quiet reassurance that some things in life still remain untouched.

I went with my good friend, Benoit. As we were greeted by masterpieces from Titian, Durer, Van Eyck, Boticelli, Cicero and Holbein, I wondered what is it about the Renaissance Faces that pacify me, the modern audience.

“Renaissance means rebirth in French,” Benoit reminded me. This is a period when Europeans started discovering the world, embarked on explorations and became aware of themselves as individuals.

The exhibition explores the motives for the varied and vivid ways in which men and women of the 15th and 16th century were presented in life and commemorated in death.

What amazes as me as a photographer is that the way the individuals were portrayed is not far from present day photographic portraiture.

The paintings main purpose is to capture the sitters’ virtues and ideals. The Renaissance people live on through their portraits.

To me they were also saying, “We too have survived change. And don’t worry, the world is not flat.”

I must admit that I feel slightly let down by modern art. The sensationalism it produces overrides the message that it should communicate.

Art is the mirror of society, but it is impossible to talk about Damien Hirst without thinking about the £12m price tag of his pickled cow. The Guardian’s chief arts writer commented on Frieze: “Art market booms slows, but Lucian Freud's Francis Bacon makes 'astronomical' £5.4m.”

Thankfully, the ancient and uncomplicated wisdom of Renaissance Faces successfully reminds us that in the end – when the hype subsides - it is our inner essence that will continue to tell our stories.