Carlo Crivelli at the Ikon Gallery

January 31 2022

Image of Carlo Crivelli at the Ikon Gallery

Picture: The National Gallery, London

Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz

The Ikon Gallery in Birmingham will be opening what looks to be a very interesting exhibition later in February dedicated to Carlo Crivelli (c.1430/5-1495). Shadows on the Sky is said to be the first exhibition in the UK dedicated to this Venetian born artist.

According to the gallery's website:

Shadows on the Sky highlights his experimental use of perspective, trompe l’oeil (optical illusion) and sculptural relief to create illusions of illusionism. Such cleverness was conveyed with consummate craftsmanship and foiled by an extraordinary elegance. Crivelli’s paintings both suggest and undermine his own visual trickery to explore the coexistence of material and spiritual realities. 

Organised in partnership with The National Gallery, the exhibition also includes loans from other leading institutions such as the National Trust, the Vatican Pinacoteca, the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Wallace Collection, and the Gemäldegalerie. Through these major loans – some for the first time – we are invited to reconsider Crivelli’s sophisticated understanding of the relationship between art and what it represents. With a sense of irony, found five hundred years later in Magritte’s Ceci n’est pas une pipe (1929), he subtly denies the possibility of one being confused with the other.

The exhibition will run from 23rd February 2022 until 29th May 2022.

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