Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,
'Boy bitten by a Lizard'
1595-1600.
London, The National Gallery.

Telling Time: Exhibition, Experiment, Audio tour

18 October 2000 - 14 January 2001
Sunley Room and Room 1

The Millennium Esso Exhibition at the National Gallery

Exploring notions of time in relation to painting raises many fascinating questions, which probe into the very nature and purpose of painting.

Divided into two sections, the exhibition in the Sunley Room examined how painters have wrestled to put time into their paintings. Story Time looked at how painters have attempted to tell stories that unfold over time in their still, unchanging images. The Moment and Movement looked at the related problems of how painters have conveyed the effects of rapid movement and captured the fleeting moment.

Experiment: Time to Look. It is easy to imagine that we see things instantly and that paintings reveal themselves to us at a glance, but looking is a process that takes time. Room 1's exciting and innovative display explored how we look and included the largest eye-tracking experiment ever conducted.

Time Trail. An audio tour through the permanent Collection included paintings that have time as their subject or pre-occupation, and also examined the effects of time on the paintings themselves.

Exhibition Catalogue

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