As part of the National Gallery's bicentenary celebrations, the Sainsbury Wing, originally opened in 1991, has been substantially restructured, making it more open, more welcoming, and, let's hope, more accessible. It has also been radically rehung, as the History of Art has changed substantially over the past 34 years. Ernst Gombrich published The Story of Art in 1950 - and one of the things that has become clear is that art does not have one singular story: there are far more stories to tell. The structure of the Sainsbury Wing allows you to move through it freely - and you can create your own 'Stories of Art' as you go. Over this series of three talks I am going to pick three routes through the space to tell three different 'stories'. 

In the last week of three we will look at works which span the full range of Italian medieval and renaissance paintings, from the earliest painting by Margarito d'Arezzo, to the birth of the High Renaissance with Raphael and Leonardo. Some works have moved back to the rooms which were originally designed for them in 1991 - the 'chapel-like' spaces designed for Piero della Francesca's Baptism of Christ and Leonardo's Burlington House Cartoon, for example. Others find new friends which were painted for similar settings - those which we know were made for domestic spaces.

There are also rooms focussing on Venice and Florence, on the varied use of gold, and on the development of 'perfection'... all of which, by some miracle of curation, brings us back to the room in which we started. 

These talks can be booked individually, or, if you would like a reduced price, book all three together via a separate link.