Friday, October 26, 2012

MAR Ravenna

A message from Sonia King on Facebook had alerted me to the fact that there was another mosaic exhibition of note on in Ravenna.  So as well as visiting the basilicas, and the tomb of Galla Placidia, we sought out MAR.   The Museum of Art, Ravenna is incredible and well worth a visit. Located in a large building on the extreme edge of the tourist precinct the facility must at one point have been a covent or something simliar.  With three levels around a quadrangle, it is quite a beautiful space.  It has a strong focus on mosaic but also exhibits more traditional art forms.  The strange thing was that the painting exhibition upstairs had a fee for entry, whereas the mosaic exhibition was free.  Hey, who am I to argue? There is also a collection of contemporary mosaic.  Whether it is a permanent part of the collection or not I could not work out, but the quality of the work was astounding with large works from the 1950's thorough to now.  The other interesting thing was there were a number of drawings, again on a large scale, that then had a completed mosaic hung next to them.  Again, something I have rarely had the opportunity to see.  I perused these works for some time.  Unfortunately there was not a catalogue of these works, however I did buy a couple of books in the MAR bookstore relating to contemporary mosaic so came away armed with more fuel for research and development of ideas. 25.10.2012

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