Town mouse on Barocci
A new exhibition at the National Gallery shows the works of Italian painter Barocci


Barocci: is it a brand of chocolates or an aftershave? It turns out to be a painter. The National Gallery has put on a show of his works, many of which are still to be seen above the Italian altars for which they were painted. Napoleon didn't think them worth carting off to the Louvre, and I'm afraid one has to see why.
They have the sweetness of a pear drop, in the pastel colours of Edinburgh rock. I wish I could have liked them more. In life, Federico Barocci seems to have been an admirable fellow. Hard-working, pious, struggling against illness-not the sort of person who would have broken Michelangelo's nose or had to sleep fully clothed, with weapons by his side, like Caravaggio. He hardly left Urbino, where he was a big friend of the Duke.
* Subscribe to Country Life and save
I wish I could have liked the exhibition more, too. It's a thoroughly scholarly effort, which doesn't attempt to pull in big crowds. Bravo! I felt it would have been better suited to a classy West End dealer, wanting to boost the market standing of a minor master, than an august national institution. Contemporaries called the artist Il Baroccio: a two-wheeled ox cart. Pretty, but rustic and plodding. Have I missed something?
* Follow Country Life magazine on Twitter
Exquisite houses, the beauty of Nature, and how to get the most from your life, straight to your inbox.
-
'Just look at those stairs. Just as an art form, they are bewitching, like the shell of a nautilus': The lure of buying a stairway to heaven
It seems like madness to buy a house purely because you fall in love with the staircase — but sometimes, they are simply so beautiful that it's impossible to resist. Toby Keel takes a look at some glorious examples of staircases we've seen in Country Life in the last couple of years.
-
'I found myself in a magical world of a sun-dappled forest, speckled with wild flowers of kaleidoscopic colours and brilliant mosses': Solo walking in the Pyrenees
The Pyrenees reserves its best treasures for walkers prepared to venture off the well-beaten trail, says Teresa Levonian Cole, on a solo holiday in Ribes de Freser.