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There are many masterpieces in Her Majesty’s gallery, and this autumn’s dual exhibitions are predictably diverse.
‘Castiglione: Lost Genius’ displays 90 drawings and prints by turbulent seventeenth-century draughtsman Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione – the UK’s first major exhibition of his work. Arrested several times for assault, Castiglione is said to have tried to throw his own sister off a roof and was eventually forced into exile from Rome, most likely for committing murder – all of which undermined his reputation as an artist. Posterity, however, recognises him as one of the greats of the Baroque.
By comparison, Tracey Emin’s ‘bad girl’ outspokenness and public drunkeness seems rather pale. Her work is featured – along with that of David Hockney, Anish Kapoor, Cornelia Parker and Grayson Perry, among others – in the parallel exhibition ‘Gifted’. This displays the Royal Academy’s bequest to the Queen in celebration of her Golden Jubilee in 2012.