A Tour for Christians
of Christian Art in
the National Gallery of Canada

A selection of 25 works from the Late Medieval era to the 17th Century

A recording of a tour given to students as part of the Augustine College art course – edited for general listeners (most discussion relative to points made in class has been edited out). While the students’ remarks could not be recorded the brief pauses left at these points give you the chance to look at the works for yourselves and form your own thoughts.

NOTE: PLEASE LISTEN WITH HEADPHONES

When you have purchased your ticket make your way to the European Collection: up the ramp and at the top of the ramp, to your right, two flights up (there is an elevator at the top of the ramp just opposite the stairs).

The galleries are numbered and the tour starts in Room 201a.

In the first two rooms the National Gallery has mixed Italian works from between 1370 and 1510, but thereafter you will encounter paintings in essentially chronological order.

Titles of works are omitted below wherever students were asked to identify works by looking. (If you wish to play along, don’t look at the label on the wall until the end of each discussion.)

There are some comparative images to look at on your device, signaled by the sound of a tone.

ROOM 201a

1

Jacopo di Cione

Triptych of the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints

1370/80

2

Workshop of Giovanni Bellini

Christ Blessing

after 1505

3

Bartolomeo Montagna

St. Jerome

1500-07

ROOM 201 | RENAISSANCE

4

Simone Martini

A Saint

1320/25

below
Roman relief of the Goddess of Victory (on the Arch of Septimius Severus) with a laurel wreath & a palm frond
Roman, 193 AD

5

Neri de Bicci

Madonna of the Girdle (Madonna della Cintola )

1455–56

6

Piero di Cosimo

Figures in a landscape – what is the subject?

c. 1490

ROOM 202 | NORTHERN RENAISSANCE

7

Dirk Bouts

Mary and Christ

1485/1500

8

Stefan Lochner

The Madonna and Child

c. 1425

9

Lukas Cranach

Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery

1535/40

10

Lukas Cranach

Figure of a woman

1518

“Young Cupid was stealing honey from a hive when a bee stung the thief on the finger. So it is for us: the brief & fleeting pleasure we seek is mingled with sadness & brings us pain”