From 26 January – 4 February Dantzig Gallery is Hosting 600 Years of Art History, a unique exhibition co-curated by Dantzig Director Dave Davies, and Oxford University art historian Monica Tonella.
Their long-term goal is to kickstart a project which will see similar exhibitions taking place around the globe. It is hoped that, in doing so, the experience of art can be provided in communities who have no access to galleries.
Tonella enthuses, “this exhibition spans six centuries of art, starting with work made in Siena in the Renaissance and stretching through time to pictures made by Andy Warhol in the 1960s.
“But the exhibition is not so much about the paintings we have included as it is about history, and about the development of art through the ages. At its heart, this display aims to set out the foundations through which future generations can engage with art.”
The exhibition was launched with a reception with special guests Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at Oxford University, and BBC television presenter and art historian Dr Janina Ramirez.

A sample of the exhibition is Jan Frans van Bloemanks Italian Landscape of 1735

Van Bloeman, a Flemish landscape artist, who mainly worked in Italy, depicts here a rural scene of a deep steep sided gorge. In the foreground a stone arch crosses the gorge with groups of people. There are two passing on the right bank and a group taking in the view on the bridge. There are rocky outcrops above the dense wooded landscape and the unity of the view is completed by the columnar ghostlike mountains in the distance. Van Bloeman’s style is clearly influenced by Claude Lorrain from a generation before where he transposes the landed estates of the Roman patrician class into a form of Arcadia.