Image no 58 of David Breuer-Weil s Golden Drawings
- Credit: Courtesy of the artist
Hampstead artist David Breuer-Weil caught Covid just as the UK entered its first lockdown.
And his enforced isolation marked the start of daily pandemic drawings of huddled humanity, inspired by Medieval illuminated manuscripts. I had all the symptoms, he says. It was like a bad flu, coughing, night sweats, tiredness, no smell or taste. Without the publicity I would have lived with it, but the fear of what it might turn into was the worst.
Working in gold leaf and pencil, the 55-year-old drew most days between March 20 and July 2020, jotting down his thoughts alongside. The resulting 66 Golden Drawings are a personal, visual diary of the global pandemic - now on virtual display and in a book.
St. Petersburg’s Sumptuous Winter Palace
Larger Than Life: Art that inspires us through the ages
Russia’s monumental pastel-green Winter Palace in St. Petersburg was once home to some of the country’s most notable emperors and empresses. The palace encompasses many types of art and architecture, including Baroque, Neoclassical, and Gothic styles, through to Rococo.
In 1754, Empress Elizabeth Petrovna commissioned Italian architect Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli to build a Baroque winter palace that would surpass the beauty of the best European palaces.
Constructed over eight years, the palace contains more than 460 sumptuous rooms. But not all the rooms were decorated according to the original Baroque design. In 1762, just after her coronation, Empress Catherine II (Catherine the Great) took up residence in the Winter Palace. She favored the new Neoclassical style of architecture, and so the palace took on a more refined style.