Not that Pacino... Early Renaissance Art at the AGO

Wednesday nights at the AGO are free^* after 6:30, and as a result the tickets to special exhibits are half-price, so the DC and I took advantage to see Revealing the Early Renaissance. Illuminated manuscripts? Yes, please.

We got there a little early, so we spent some time downstairs with the ship models. I didn't even know these were here! Incredible detail, although the dredgers were probably much cleaner than the real thing. Also, a lot of "cruisers" had canons, which makes me appreciate the relative safety of my QM2 crossing all the more.

No pics of the stuff in the exhibition, naturally, but one of the master artists was named Pacino. Clearly he's multi-talented! Okay, so he's not that one. But he did paint a really striking crucifixion scene with a dark background instead of the standard gold. And one particularly odd altar piece where the apostles appear to be drinking from straws shooting straight out of Jesus's navel. Ahem. He did make some mighty fine manuscripts, too.

Never mind that the Renaissance was probably not a thing; the exhibit has some lovely stuff. They were just starting to use perspective, and some of the altar pieces have an eerie 3D look to them; in one in particular, the Virgin's hand seems to extend over the edge of her balcony in front of her. I think the illusion is due to colour contrast, and it's pretty nifty.

There are some truly gorgeous manuscripts in this collection. Unbelievable detail on the capitals, like they used a brush one or two hairs wide. Unfortunately, the helpful information panels were only helpful as to the makers and the styles they used or were developing. Which is, I guess, what the exhibit is about, but I like info panels that also tell you what the story is and how you can tell which saint in particular is being beheaded**.

We were trying to decipher the words of one sheet of the Laudario when a woman came up to us and started talking and talking and talking. At first, it was mildly interesting, but then she followed us to the next room and would. not. stop. talking. The DC was far too polite and I callously abandoned him he ran interference while I went to look at the Dante manuscripts.

Fear not, my love:

We didn't get a chance to see anything else as the gallery was closing, but we did see the beginning of Ai Weiwei's Snake Ceiling on the way out.

Afterwards, we went for burgers & brew at the Village Idiot pub. Excellent veggie burger.

The exhibit runs until June 16. There's a talk on manuscripts May 1 that I may go to.

^*I get in free to the permanent collection anytime because I'm a special snowflake. You can also get passes from the TPL.

^**It could be any number of them. It seems to have been a popular martyr-making method.