Author Archives: Blue Guides

Letter from Italy

Posted on by

Virtual museum tours: some of the best

For professional guides in Italy this is, of course, a period in which they suddenly find themselves without work. However many museums, while closed to the public, have made it possible not only to consult their catalogues or browse the collections online but have also opened virtual exhibitions. The Uffizi in Florence is one such example.

Easter is usually the busiest time of year in Florence, with hundreds of thousands of visitors. The traditional Scoppio del Carro is held in Piazza del Duomo on Easter morning. This year, however, there will be no visitors and no events—even church services must be attended remotely. Spring is definitely on the way, however, and the plants and birds at least are enjoying the sun and clean air as never before. The Uffizi’s ‘The Easter Story’, an exhibition on the theme of the Resurrection, will help us to look forward to better times ahead.

And the Uffizi is not alone in its response. Lisa Corsi, a professional guide who lives in Florence, has investigated some of the most interesting websites available in English at this period of universal lockdown and shared her findings with Blue Guides.

Italy

1. The Uffizi Gallery in Florence offers various online exhibits at this link: www.uffizi.it/en/online-exhibitions Here is a list of the current online exhibits, all with high-definition pictures of Uffizi works of art.
– “Non per foco ma per divin’arte. Dantean echoes from the Uffizi Galleries”. An excursus on the figure of Dante and on his legacy in the works and in the minds of the artists.
– “On being present; recovering blackness at the Uffizi Gallery”. The idea is to understand and resignificate with a historic approach, the presence of black people in the Uffizi paintings.
– “In the light of the Angels; a journey through 12 masterpieces of the Uffizi Galleries, between human and divine”. This exhibit is all about Angels; from Giotto to Giovanni da San Giovanni, with very good pictures.
– “Today a Saviour has been born to you: the Uffizi Galleries’ paintings on the Nativity and Epiphany”. A thematic exhibition.
– “Following in Trajan’s Footsteps; a virtual exhibition on items from the reign of Trajan present in the Uffizi collections”.
– “The Room of Saturn in the Pitti Palace; a history of the arrangements in the Room of Saturn, from the 16th century to the present day”. I found this interesting, and it also includes the latest changes from 2018 in the room that features the largest group of paintings by Raphael.
– “#BotticelliSpringMarathon A virtual exhibition on the construction of the contemporary Botticelli myth through social media”. An excursus on the fame and fortune of Botticelli from the 19th century to social media.
– “The Easter Story: Passion, death and Resurrection of Christ among the artworks of the Uffizi Galleries”.
– “Views from around the World; an ‘intercultural vision’ of some masterpieces of the Uffizi Galleries”.
– “The Scenic Virtuality of a Painting: “Perseus Freeing Andromeda” by Piero di Cosimo. A masterpiece of the Florentine Renaissance depicting the myth recounted by Ovid in Book IV of the Metamorphoses”. An in-depth approach to one of the Uffizi’s most unusual paintings.
– “Between Human and Divine: Cimabue and the Santa Trinita Maestà”. Observing the details of one of the most important medieval paintings in the Uffizi collection.
– “New languages to communicate tradition: Vanished Florence. Images of the city in the 18th and 19th centuries, before it became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy” This is fun, though mostly aimed at people who know Florence quite well.
– “Painting and Drawing ‘like a Great Master’: the talent of Elisabetta Sirani (Bologna, 1638–55)”. An exhibit on one of the rare women painters of the past.
– “Federico Barocci, master draughtsman. The creation of images; extraordinary examples from the rich collection of the Department of Prints and Drawings of the Uffizi”.
– “Amico revisited. Drawings by Amico Aspertini and other Bolognese artists; discovering marvels from the collection of prints and drawings of the Uffizi”.
– “Traces 2018. Letting fashion drive you in the Museum of Costume and Fashion”.
– “Traces. Dialoguing with art in the Museum of Costume and Fashion”.
– “The World of Yesterday: rare book collection of the Library on view”. These 39 books tell us the fascinating story of Pasquale Nerino Ferri (1851–1917), the first director of the Uffizi’s Prints and Drawings Department, through analysis of his handwritten notes and the dates and dedications written by his correspondents from all over Europe.

2. The Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan has a good site. The online collection features 669 records, all with high-resolution images and information on the various works. At this link pinacotecabrera.org/en/collezioni/the-collection-online you can browse the collection searching by author, material, date, etc. There is also a section dedicated to the masterpieces which features (with great pictures) the 11 most famous paintings in the collection (by Raphael, Piero della Francesca, Caravaggio, Mantegna, Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, Hayez, Boccioni, Pellizza da Volpedo and Modigliani).

3. Also in Milan, the Museo Poldi Pezzoli offers an online catalogue of many of its artworks. It is very well done. The museum was once the house of the art lover and collector Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli (1822–79). Here’s the link to its site: museopoldipezzoli.it/en/artworks.

4. Virtually visit the Palazzo del Quirinale in Rome and its grounds. It is the residence of the Italian head of state, the President of the Italian Republic, currently Sergio Mattarella: palazzo.quirinale.it/visitevirtuali/visitevirtuali_en.html.

5. Also in Rome the Galleria Borghese offers good pictures and a little explanation of some of its artworks: galleriaborghese.beniculturali.it/en/il-museo/autori-e-opere.

Rest of the world

6. The Archeological Museum in Athens has a good site, very easy to navigate. Here’s the link: www.namuseum.gr/en/collections.

7. The Prado Museum in Madrid has a great site with lots of artworks featured by artist, by century, by theme. Here’s the link: www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-works. And here are the Prado masterpieces: museodelprado.es/en/the-collection.

8. The British Museum in London has a very good site that allows you to browse the collections and also to virtually visit its rooms. Very well done. Here’s the link: britishmuseum.org/collection.

9. The Metropolitan Museum in New York (metmuseum.org) has an online collection: metmuseum.org/toah/works.
It also offers an interesting “Timeline of Art History”: metmuseum.org/toah/chronology/#!?time=all&geo=all. There are also many essays that can be read online at its link: metmuseum.org/toah/essays
And some videos: metmuseum.org/art/online-features/met-360-project.

10. The site of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg is very impressive and offers different possibilities, including a virtual tour of the rooms.
There is also the “Explore the Hermitage” section, where you can choose to learn more on a single work of art, or learn more on the buildings, visit the online collection and more. Here’s the link.
The only downside is that this is a very “heavy” site to navigate and it requires a fast internet connection and a good computer.


* * * * *

Dante Day

Italy is still in the front line of the battle against Coronavirus, with more deaths in a day (475 on 18th March) than in any other country including China. The population is taking lockdown seriously and inevitably the use of the web from home-users has increased enormously. I was interested to see reports in the newspapers of the forthcoming ‘Dantedì’, instituted by the Minister of Cultural Affairs. The idea is to make 25th March into an annual celebration in honour of Italy’s greatest poet, Dante Alighieri. The date has been chosen as it was on that day in 1300, under a full moon, that Dante and Virgil begin their week-long journey from Hell through Purgatory into Paradise in The Divine Comedy. March 25th is also the feast-day of the Annunciation, which began the new year in the Florentine calendar up until the 18th century.

The day is intended to celebrate Dante and the Italian language. This year’s celebration was planned as an ‘antipasto’ to the great events scheduled for next year, 2021 which marks the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death. With the country in lockdown, no public events can be held in the piazze this year, but there will be numerous events online and on television.

Dante (1265-1321) was born in Florence and the city later provided the great human melting-pot from which the poet took inspiration for some of the most memorable characters of the Divina Commedia. Dante also served a two-month term as one of the six priors in the Florentine government in 1300. During his absence in Rome, as part of an official delegation to Pope Boniface VIII, he was accused of fraud and corruption by a faction of the Guelf party and when he failed to return in 1302 to defend himself he was sentenced to death. He chose to go into exile and was never to return to his beloved city.

The Divina Commedia was written during his exile and in it he re-elaborated, with amazing imagination and poetic skill, the classical myth of the descent into Hades. It provides an astonishing ‘summa’ of medieval culture, but this epic poem is also written in a language (partly created by the poet himself) which is as close to modern Italian as Shakespeare’s language is to English today. What perhaps impresses us most in the poem is that Dante, while providing a vibrant fresco of the political and religious controversies of his time, is also able to tell us about himself, about his friends and enemies, about his teachers, his passions and his religious belief. The Commedia is about a man called Dante Alighieri, who finds salvation thanks to the love of the angelic Beatrice. But author and ‘hero’ are one and the same: Dante’s fede (faith), which he defines as ‘the substance of our hopes’, permits him to assert that the story that he tells actually took place. And when we read the Commedia, it is very difficult not to believe him.

The poet died (and was buried) in Ravenna. Naturally he features in our description of that city in Blue Guide Emilia Romagna, but he is also frequently recorded in other Blue Guides, because so many buildings and monuments in Italy are mentioned in his poem. But it is in Florence where his presence is felt most: in the medieval area where he lived, in the places he describes (now marked by marble plaques), in the monuments inside and outside Santa Croce, and in the frescoed portraits of him which still survive in the city.

Florence was also the birthplace of Boccaccio (1313–75), a great admirer of Dante. He experienced the great plague of 1348, which in his Decameron becomes an allegory for the moral decay of his time. It is for this reason that Boccaccio’s stories, written in beautiful and articulate prose, should not be regarded simply as examples of literary originality and of a Renaissance sense of humour. The tales recounted in the Decameron are told by three young men and seven young women who, in order to escape a city devastated by plague (and also by greed and avarice) find refuge in a villa near Fiesole, where they create a world in which the mercantile mentality is refined through a rediscovery of the values of classical humanitas and courtesy. With a lightness of touch and true wit, Boccaccio reminds us that the first step towards creating a more humane society is to recover the precious art of story-telling.

In these dire times we have much to learn from these two great medieval literary figures.

Alta Macadam. Florence, 22nd March 2020

I gratefully acknowledge the help of my son Giovanni Ivison Colacicchi in interpreting the poetic significance of both Dante and Boccaccio. Giovanni and his companion Elisa are at present in lockdown in Ferrara in Emilia-Romagna, one of the regions of Italy worst hit by Coronavirus, but they are lucky enough to be able to carry on their teaching activity from home, and their 3-year-old son Francesco is greatly enjoying their presence, 24 hours a day.


* * * * *

Pope Francis takes a walk

With Italy in lockdown because of Coronavirus, we were treated to the extraordinary sight of Pope Francis walking along the deserted Corso in Rome from Piazza Venezia to the church of San Marcello. He decided to make this gesture of solidarity and hope to the faithful since the church contains a Crucifix said to be miraculous. He went in and knelt before it, a lone figure, to pray for the end of this current ‘plague’. On the same day he also went to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore to offer up a prayer before the greatly venerated image of the Madonna which for centuries has been known as the ‘Salus Populi’ or ‘Saviour of the People’. These simple gestures, typical of the present Pope and made totally regardless of security, were seen by many Italians as an encouragement to all at a time when, for the first time in history, churches all over the country are forbidden to hold services.

We have just brought out the 12th edition of Blue Guide Rome and in fact had expanded our text on the San Marcello Crucifix, which now reads as follows: “Today the church has become a site of modern pilgrimage, with a banner on the façade proudly advertising its ‘Crocifisso Miracoloso’ or wonder-working Crucifix […] a 14 th -century Cross which was greatly revered by Pope John Paul II, who in the year 2000 had it moved to St Peter’s during Lent”. For the future 13th edition will remember to note this historic visit by Papa Francesco.

Many will be sceptical about the miraculous element in this story but no one can deny that it was a spontaneous act of faith and encouragement from a pope greatly admired for his closeness to the people. The fact that he left the Vatican to pray before this precious ancient work has encouraged a feeling of involvement in a country and a city where a great many devout Catholics are now isolated one from the other. We are told that the Pope is now in confinement at Santa Marta, just as we are in confinement in our own homes.

Alta Macadam, 15th March 2020


* * * * *

Letter from Italy

With the closure today of the museums and monuments in all of Italy, those of us who visit them also for work are left wondering how such a thing could have happened in our lifetime. We suddenly find ourselves facing a drastic shortage of culture: no libraries, no theatre, no cinema. However, the very direct explanation by Prime Minister Conte late last night made it all too clear how necessary such measures have become in a country where the dreaded Coronavirus is suddenly holding us all hostage. There is no doubt that Italy has trusted leaders in Conte and President Mattarella, and the country’s medical profession are displaying all their dedication and efficiency. There is an evident preparedness in those in places of responsibility and a feeling of teamwork and pulling together in times of emergency. Millions of other Italians have merely been asked to stay at home for the time being. A measure which seems eminently sensible and which should not be a great sacrifice. Who knows how this forced restriction might even foster closer family relationships and make the homes themselves more comfortable. My garden will certainly enjoy greater attention. And with all the benefits of the internet, no one need feel cut off. There is even hope that the closure of museums and monuments will give those great institutions a chance for practicalities impossible when they are open all the time—even if only some radical cleaning, but also perhaps some reorganisation—an almost welcome pause to ‘stand back’ and contemplate themselves and their ‘mission’. I look of course on the rosy side of things, the side for those fortunate enough to have families and homes, but there is a very ugly side of this ‘shut down’, such as the situation in the overcrowded prisons, or that of people cut off from their families who are in hospitals or nursing homes, and the extremely dire economic consequences. This situation is making us all wonder about how we should live our lives in the future, about how long we can expect to enjoy ‘normal’ life in our global world.

For my involvement in the Blue Guides to Italy (Blue Guide Rome has just been published) it means I cannot set off for Venice and the Veneto for work on a volume coming up for revision: a restriction which has been imposed on me for the very first time by circumstances beyond my control (the only other time this happened to me was when I had to cut short a trip for Blue Guide Northern Italy when I was staying in Trieste the day of the terrible earthquake which hit the Friuli in 1976).

We can but hope the virus will soon be dominated with the help of everyone round the world and that we will soon return to a life as we know it, if greatly sobered by what has happened to us all.

Alta Macadam. Florence, 10th March 2020

Florence: Forged in Fire

Posted on by

There are just a few days left to catch this exhibition in Palazzo Pitti (Forged in Fire. Bronze sculpture in Florence under the last Medici; on until 12th January 2020), which illustrates the bronze sculpture made for the Medici court in the 17th and 18th centuries, some of the most important work in this medium in Europe at the time. For long this period in Florence (beginning with the reign of Cosimo II) was equated with decadence and it has only been since the 1960s that scholars have begun to re-evaluate the role of the Medici grand-dukes in promoting excellence in art and their activity as collectors, and the exhibition has been an occasion to study in depth the sculptors at work in this Baroque period. Accompanied by a superb scholarly catalogue, complete with full biographies of each artist, it underlines the standing of artists such as Giovanni Battista Foggini, Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi and Giuseppe Piamontini, all three of whom produced large, sometimes life-size bronzes as well as the much more familiar small bronzes (masters of which including Antonio and Giovanni Francesco Susini and Pietro Tacca are well represented in the exhibition). The curators have even been able to retrieve eleven of the twelve celebrated bronze groups of religious subjects made between 1722 and 1725, by many of the artists present in the exhibition, for Anna Maria Luisa, the Electress Palatine, and which she kept in her rooms in Palazzo Pitti (these later found their way to museums as far afield as Madrid, Detroit, Berlin, Birmingham and St Petersburg). Soldani-Benzi’s patron was the Prince of Liechtenstein and works from the ‘Princely Collections, Vaduz-Vienna’ are also present in the exhibition—seen in Florence for the first time. The sculptures on show are mostly in patinated bronze, which sometimes takes on a greenish shiny tone, or reddish tint, rather than the more familiar ink black of Renaissance bronzes.

Apart from the numerous sculptures, a collection of drawings by Soldani-Benzi (only acquired by the Uffizi in 2017) is exhibited opposite a pair of very fine green porphyry vases with gilt bronze decoration by the same artist (and preserved in Palazzo Pitti).

The works by the lesser-known Piamontini include very impressive large-scale bronzes (lent from a Ministry in Rome) closely inspired by ancient marbles, some of which could be described as reproductions of Classical works in a different medium.

In 1687 Foggini, after a spell in Rome, was appointed court sculptor to the grand-dukes and was also responsible for producing furniture and other fine objects, some in pietre dure. His versatility as a sculptor is well illustrated in this exhibition and he emerges as the central artist of his time in Florence. For more details of the exhibition, see here.

by Alta Macadam, author of Blue Guide Florence.

European rail changes for 2020

Posted on by

European railway operators revised their timetables on 15 December 2019 for the coming year. Mark Dudgeon, the Blue Guides rail correspondent, highlights some of the main changes to international services:

Night services

The nadir for overnight train services in Europe came three years ago when SNCF, the French national operator, reduced its overnight services to a bare minimum and Deutsche Bahn, the German national rail operator, withdrew all of its sleeper services, citing decreasing passenger numbers and increasing losses. Such decisions now seem to have been misguided. Austrian Federal Railways (OeBB) took over several of DB’s services and has made a success of it under the Nightjet brand. OeBB announced in October 2019 that bookings on both its regular seated and sleeper night trains were up 11 per cent year-on-year, and it plans to introduce a fleet of new trains in 2022 with en-suite sleeping compartments, and sleeping pods replacing the traditional couchettes.

Other rail operators, noting the growth in international rail travel, and the increasing awareness of the need for more sustainable travel modes, are looking at investing in night train services. Swiss Federal Railways has indicated that it is seeking to expand capacity on the night services between Switzerland and Germany and from Zurich to Prague. In Sweden, the government has invested in a feasibility study for the introduction of international night trains between Stockholm and several European cities, whilst in Scotland, the government is looking into starting an overnight train service from Glasgow and Edinburgh through Inverness and along the Far North line to Thurso, where it would connect with the ferry to Orkney.

In the immediate future, the new timetable sees the reintroduction of a night train service between Vienna and Brussels. On Wednesdays and Sundays from 19 January 2020, the existing Vienna/Innsbruck – Cologne – Dusseldorf will instead operate its final section between Cologne and Brussels. Departure from Vienna will be at 20:38, with arrival in Brussels Midi station at 10:55 the following morning. In the reverse direction, trains will depart Brussels at 18:04 on Mondays and Thursdays, with arrival in Vienna at 08:27 on Tuesdays and Fridays. It will be possible to travel between London and Vienna with only one change of train: connecting Eurostar services – with a cushion of about two hours in Brussels in each direction – will arrive at London St Pancras at 14:05 and depart from London for Brussels at 12:58.

Further expansion of this service will come in December 2020, when it is planned to increase the frequency of the Vienna – Brussels night train to daily operation, with a portion of this train going forward to Amsterdam, thus reintroducing night trains to the Netherlands after a gap of several years.

Western Europe

OeBB continues to expand coverage of its Railjet services. A new service will connect Vienna and Bolzano in the Italian province of Alto Adige/South Tyrol. It has been many years since the two cities were connected by direct trains, and then only by a seasonal service.

From June 2020, there will be an additional Railjet service from Berlin via Prague to Vienna and Graz. This will complement the existing Berlin – Nuremberg – Vienna ICE service.

TGV Lyria trains operating between Paris and Switzerland will see a boost in capacity by more than 25% by using exclusively double-deck trains. Furthermore, the introduction of ICE-4 trainsets to replace the existing ICE-1 sets will represent a 20% increase in capacity on services between Switzerland, Frankfurt and Berlin. SBB Swiss Federal Railways has announced that Switzerland has seen a 10% increase in international passenger traffic year-on-year for the first nine months of 2019.

The short but strategically important cross-border line between Geneva and Annemasse (in France) has opened. Services over the line are branded Léman Express and many trains will run onwards in France to Evian-les-Bains and Annecy.

In rather sad news for aficionados of train-ferry operations, one of the few remaining such services in Europe has ceased. In a highly-efficient arrangement, Hamburg to Copenhagen trains used to board the vehicle ferry between Puttgarden in Germany and Rødby in Denmark, the trains fitting very snugly onto the ferry’s vehicle deck alongside coaches and cars. They will now take the longer route northwards through Jutland, then turning eastwards across the Great Belt Fixed Link. However, the journey time will be slightly reduced.

Central and eastern Europe

• The Vienna – Budapest – Cluj Napoca (EC Transilvania) train will also convey through coaches to another Romanian city, Satu Mare. These coaches will be detached from the Transilvania at Püspökladány in Hungary.

• EC Báthory which previously connected Budapest and Warsaw is extended to Terespol on the border between Poland and Belarus. At Bohumin in the Czech Republic, a sleeping car to the Belarusian capital, Minsk, will be attached.

• The niche private operator Leo Express, which operates trains between Prague, Ostrava, Kosice and Krakow will introduce a train from Prague to the Polish city of Wroclaw on three days a week. Leo Express trains consist of three classes: economy, business and the excellent 6-seat premium zone. It’s a shame that its trains between the major tourist centres of Prague and Krakow operate only twice weekly and at rather unsocial hours: arrival at Krakow is at 22:50 and the return departure to Prague at – unfortunately – 04:29.

MAV Hungarian railways have recently reintroduced restaurant cars on its Eurocity services between Budapest and Vienna and Budapest and Romania; a welcome enhancement, but think comfort food rather than haute cuisine.

And finally …..

Subject to government approval, Eurostar will operate through services from Amsterdam to London from 31 March 2020. The London to Amsterdam service started in spring 2018, but the return services – bafflingly – ended at Brussels with passengers having to go through the normal check-in and security procedures before catching the next Eurostar to London. Departures from Amsterdam Centraal are provisionally planned for 07:47, 13:46 and 18:47 arriving at London St Pancras at 10:57, 16:57 and 21:57 – a journey time of just over 4 hours. It must be emphasised that the British and Dutch governments have to sign the relevant treaty before the service can go ahead.

UPDATE Feb 2020: Government approvals having been obtained, direct Eurostar services from Amsterdam to London will start on 30th April 2020, with the infrastructure changes to allow for security and check-in at Amsterdam Centraal now in place.Initially there will be two direct trains per day (departing Amsterdam at 07:48 and 16:48) – which is likely to increase to four daily trains later in the year. A few tweaks are still required at Rotterdam Centraal station: the intermediate stop there will start from 18th May.

European rail changes for 2020

Posted on by

European railway operators revised their timetables on 15 December 2019 for the coming year. Mark Dudgeon, the Blue Guides rail correspondent, highlights some of the main changes to international services:

Night services

The nadir for overnight train services in Europe came three years ago when SNCF, the French national operator, reduced its overnight services to a bare minimum and Deutsche Bahn, the German national rail operator, withdrew all of its sleeper services, citing decreasing passenger numbers and increasing losses. Such decisions now seem to have been misguided. Austrian Federal Railways (OeBB) took over several of DB’s services and has made a success of it under the Nightjet brand. OeBB announced in October 2019 that bookings on both its regular seated and sleeper night trains were up 11 per cent year-on-year, and it plans to introduce a fleet of new trains in 2022 with en-suite sleeping compartments, and sleeping pods replacing the traditional couchettes.

Other rail operators, noting the growth in international rail travel, and the increasing awareness of the need for more sustainable travel modes, are looking at investing in night train services. Swiss Federal Railways has indicated that it is seeking to expand capacity on the night services between Switzerland and Germany and from Zurich to Prague. In Sweden, the government has invested in a feasibility study for the introduction of international night trains between Stockholm and several European cities, whilst in Scotland, the government is looking into starting an overnight train service from Glasgow and Edinburgh through Inverness and along the Far North line to Thurso, where it would connect with the ferry to Orkney.

In the immediate future, the new timetable sees the reintroduction of a night train service between Vienna and Brussels. On Wednesdays and Sundays from 19 January 2020, the existing Vienna/Innsbruck – Cologne – Dusseldorf will instead operate its final section between Cologne and Brussels. Departure from Vienna will be at 20:38, with arrival in Brussels Midi station at 10:55 the following morning. In the reverse direction, trains will depart Brussels at 18:04 on Mondays and Thursdays, with arrival in Vienna at 08:27 on Tuesdays and Fridays. It will be possible to travel between London and Vienna with only one change of train: connecting Eurostar services – with a cushion of about two hours in Brussels in each direction – will arrive at London St Pancras at 14:05 and depart from London for Brussels at 12:58.

Further expansion of this service will come in December 2020, when it is planned to increase the frequency of the Vienna – Brussels night train to daily operation, with a portion of this train going forward to Amsterdam, thus reintroducing night trains to the Netherlands after a gap of several years.

Western Europe

OeBB continues to expand coverage of its Railjet services. A new service will connect Vienna and Bolzano in the Italian province of Alto Adige/South Tyrol. It has been many years since the two cities were connected by direct trains, and then only by a seasonal service.

From June 2020, there will be an additional Railjet service from Berlin via Prague to Vienna and Graz. This will complement the existing Berlin – Nuremberg – Vienna ICE service.

TGV Lyria trains operating between Paris and Switzerland will see a boost in capacity by more than 25% by using exclusively double-deck trains. Furthermore, the introduction of ICE-4 trainsets to replace the existing ICE-1 sets will represent a 20% increase in capacity on services between Switzerland, Frankfurt and Berlin. SBB Swiss Federal Railways has announced that Switzerland has seen a 10% increase in international passenger traffic year-on-year for the first nine months of 2019.

The short but strategically important cross-border line between Geneva and Annemasse (in France) has opened. Services over the line are branded Léman Express and many trains will run onwards in France to Evian-les-Bains and Annecy.

In rather sad news for aficionados of train-ferry operations, one of the few remaining such services in Europe has ceased. In a highly-efficient arrangement, Hamburg to Copenhagen trains used to board the vehicle ferry between Puttgarden in Germany and Rødby in Denmark, the trains fitting very snugly onto the ferry’s vehicle deck alongside coaches and cars. They will now take the longer route northwards through Jutland, then turning eastwards across the Great Belt Fixed Link. However, the journey time will be slightly reduced.

Central and eastern Europe

• The Vienna – Budapest – Cluj Napoca (EC Transilvania) train will also convey through coaches to another Romanian city, Satu Mare. These coaches will be detached from the Transilvania at Püspökladány in Hungary.

• EC Báthory which previously connected Budapest and Warsaw is extended to Terespol on the border between Poland and Belarus. At Bohumin in the Czech Republic, a sleeping car to the Belarusian capital, Minsk, will be attached.

• The niche private operator Leo Express, which operates trains between Prague, Ostrava, Kosice and Krakow will introduce a train from Prague to the Polish city of Wroclaw on three days a week. Leo Express trains consist of three classes: economy, business and the excellent 6-seat premium zone. It’s a shame that its trains between the major tourist centres of Prague and Krakow operate only twice weekly and at rather unsocial hours: arrival at Krakow is at 22:50 and the return departure to Prague at – unfortunately – 04:29.

MAV Hungarian railways have recently reintroduced restaurant cars on its Eurocity services between Budapest and Vienna and Budapest and Romania; a welcome enhancement, but think comfort food rather than haute cuisine.

And finally …..

Subject to government approval, Eurostar will operate through services from Amsterdam to London from 31 March 2020. The London to Amsterdam service started in spring 2018, but the return services – bafflingly – ended at Brussels with passengers having to go through the normal check-in and security procedures before catching the next Eurostar to London. Departures from Amsterdam Centraal are provisionally planned for 07:47, 13:46 and 18:47 arriving at London St Pancras at 10:57, 16:57 and 21:57 – a journey time of just over 4 hours. It must be emphasised that the British and Dutch governments have to sign the relevant treaty before the service can go ahead.

UPDATE Feb 2020: Government approvals having been obtained, direct Eurostar services from Amsterdam to London will start on 30th April 2020, with the infrastructure changes to allow for security and check-in at Amsterdam Centraal now in place. Initially there will be two direct trains per day (departing Amsterdam at 07:48 and 16:48) – which is likely to increase to four daily trains later in the year. A few tweaks are still required at Rotterdam Centraal station: the intermediate stop there will start from 18th May.

An Artist of the World

Posted on by
Portrait of the artist’s wife. 1918. Private collection.

A rare treat for lovers of portraiture: a small show entirely dedicated to the work of Philip de László (1869–1937) is currently running at the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest.

On the face of it, this should not seem altogether surprising. Hungarian gallery exhibits works by Hungarian artist. Not a headline-stealer, you might think. But the extraordinary thing about de László is, that this is the first exhibition devoted to his work to be mounted in his native city for almost a hundred years.

De László was the last—and for many, the finest—portraitist in the Grand Manner. His biography is a true example of life mimicking fairy-tale. Born into a humble family in inner-city Budapest, he rose to become the most sought-after portrait painter of his generation. He married an Anglo-Irish girl, Lucy Guinness, and settled permanently in England in 1907. During the course of an exceptionally successful career he painted more than 4,000 likenesses: heads of state (many of them crowned), lords temporal and spiritual, celebrated hostesses, heroes of the battlefield—and was much honoured in recognition, receiving the MVO from Edward VII and a grant of arms from Franz Joseph (to name but two of the 22 distinctions heaped upon him).

The sixteen works on display in this small show, all from de László’s mature period, represent a tiny fraction of his total output. His pace was feverish and scarcely slackened, except when he was interned as a person of ‘hostile origin’ during WWI. The portraits, both from public collections and on loan from private ones, are well chosen, a mix of the famous, the not-so-famous and the fascinating to google. Among them are Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (when Duchess of York), Cardinal Mariano Rampolla (whose path to the papacy was blocked by Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary) and General Artúr Görgei, anti-hero of the Hungarian War of Independence of 1849. But the success of a portrait need not depend on the fame of the sitter (only think of Frans Hals’ Laughing Cavalier). By no means all of de László’s subjects were household names, but with an artist of his skill, that is irrelevant. De László was brilliant at capturing a likeness. His portraits flatter but never falsify. The face is everything, and it is made to speak volumes. ‘Wonderfully clever,’ was Margot Asquith’s verdict on her portrait of 1901, ‘and much more interesting than I am’. This is possibly because there is so much left unsaid. Unlike, for example, Pompeo Batoni, the popular Italian portraitist of some hundred years previously, who threw suggestive contextual paraphernalia into his backgrounds (hunting dogs and fragments of Grecian urn, to anchor his subjects in their ‘milords-on-the-Grand Tour’ personas), de László rarely uses extraneous props. The result is an impression of irresistible glamour. De László may have had extraordinary powers of psychological penetration but he also got to the essence of his sitters by the simple expedient of chatting to them. Many became lifelong friends. One gets the impression that sitting for him was fun. Unlike Sargent, who ultimately disliked a lot of the people who made his reputation, Eeyore-ishly admitting that ‘Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend,’ de László’s experience and approach was entirely the opposite. He liked people. He was a showman, garrulous and energetic. A lovely touch in this exhibition is a little cine film snippet that shows him darting about his studio with quick, robin-like movements.

There is also a sense of the thrill of the chase. One of the aims of the De Laszlo Archive Trust is to complete the Catalogue Raisonné of all de László’s works, the whereabouts of many of which are still unknown. But when a lost painting does float to the surface, the excitement is palpable. At the opening night of this exhibition, four generations of one family were present in the room: the sitter and her children staring out from one of the portraits and the grand-daughter and great-grand-daughter among the assembled guests. The group portrait in question had only just come to light, in eastern Hungary. Hiding in plain sight. But de László is not well known in his native country. Partly because he left it and made his name outside. Partly because the monarchs and prelates of the age he depicted were hopelessly bad cadre under Communism. Not all of their reputations have recovered (Admiral Horthy, Mussolini, Kaiser Wilhelm II) but as de László himself insisted—in a remark which has become famous and serves as the title of this exhibition—he painted people, not politics. And nowhere is this more obvious than in the portraits of his family. The portrait of Lucy (their relationship was not without its trials but remained devoted) is an exceptionally accomplished work, using the device of the mirror to play with ideas of reality and illusion, the paradox of the viewer viewed. Perhaps this little jewel box of an exhibition does something similar in the variety of ways it displays its artist to us. De László is manifoldly manifest. These are his portraits, of course. One of them is even a self-portrait. And then there is the cine-clip. But he is present in three dimensions too, in the form of a small sculpture by Paul Troubetkzkoy. A lovely example of the limner limned.

I am an Artist of the World runs at the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest until 5th January.