Rooms and rituals

Another major show at the V&A, this time devoted to the more distant past, and thus inevitably of less general interest than a survey of, say, Modernism. It’s not always easy to bring to life a period so different from ours as the courtly and sophisticated Renaissance, though the mix of civilisation and barbarity that fuelled society then is familiar enough today. This display calls itself an exhibition of rooms and rituals, and its intention is to recreate the experience of living in the more affluent of Italian Renaissance homes. Focusing on the trinity of reception room, study and bedroom, and packing the galleries with pictures, furniture, textiles and various other accessories, the show makes a bold attempt to summon the atmosphere of 500 or so years past. If this is not entirely successful, and the galleries lack an essential human warmth to animate them (even with the presence of visitors), then this is not entirely surprising. What we still have is a collection of very fine exhibits, and the show must be judged at least a partial success on the quality of these objects.

It begins with a pair of Veronese portraits, with a glass cabinet containing a rapier stuck between them. This singularly obtuse piece of hanging prevents the visitor from seeing the two paintings together, and rather sours the initial impression. To the left is Botticelli’s ‘Portrait of a Lady’, informally dressed in a domestic setting, but depicted with an otherworldly clarity and serenity that suggests (along with her flowing garb) that she is pregnant. It’s at this point that the overweening metal-framed exhibition design begins to get annoying. It was clearly intended to divide up the space ‘meaningfully’, but only succeeds in being constricting and all too visible. Its three-dimensional metal drawing (coupled with white lines on the floor) is supposed to evoke interiors, but fails to stand in effectively for architecture.