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Art and Memory

We think we remember works of art rather well; and probably assume that the greater the work of art, and the more...

In my early decades, going to an art gallery abroad always culminated in a good deal of time spent at the postcard carousels; and over the years I have accumulated a vast collection of cards which I can use to check my memory. Postcard-sending has become a greatly diminished pastime: museum gift shops earn more money from, and hence give more space to, art-themed scarves, children’s games, van Gogh mugs and repro jewellery. At the end of last year, I was in Palermo, and made a pilgrimage (not an exaggeration) to the Galleria Regionale della Sicilia to see what I might allow a future character in a book of mine to call ‘the most beautiful painting in the world’: Antonello da Messina’s portrait of the Virgin Annunciate.

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