Top of the Hill new programme
Muswell Hill’s new social group Top of the Hill had a great success with its first ever meeting on Wednesday afternoon 10th October, when almost 50 people were treated to a talk by Prof Michael Baum on art interpretation and medical diagnosis. Michael, a retired professor of oncology and surgery started by explaining the messages hidden in plain sight in Holbein’s great painting, The Ambassadors, before ‘diagnosing’ Bronzino’s An Allegory with Venus and Cupid. It is a well-known and much loved picture, rather erotic and somewhat risqué (Venus was Cupid’s mother!). But the moral of the picture lies in the figures surrounding the two main characters which illustrate the symptoms of tertiary syphilis!
After which everyone adjourned for a great afternoon tea and lots of chatting and agreed that ToTH had got off to a wonderful start and were looking forward to the next meetings.
