This is a series of fifty-four lectures given by the staff of the Institute. It deals with major themes and issues in the history of Western art.

The lectures are organised into nine blocks of six lectures each. Seven of the blocks introduce you to the art and issues involved in the study of particular periods; the other two introduce you to the physical history of works of art, and to questions raised by looking beyond the normal frontiers of Western art.

This course introduces students to the French art world of the mid to later nineteenth century. It deals with the development of art in the period from a historiographical perspective, by juxtaposing the conventional narrative of modern art, presented in terms of successive, progressive art movements, with the alternative views of the history of the period which have recently challenged this linear history. A broad range of topics will be considered, including the evolution of the realist mode, the role of state art policy, the Salon and alternative exhibition spaces, the ‘Haussmannisation’ of Paris, and the artistic relevance of photography. Each will provide opportunities to weigh up their relative significance as well as to question the values and assumptions underlying different versions of their history. Throughout, questions of style are explored in the context of institutional frameworks, the language of art criticism and theory, and the wider political implications of the debates.

How did a courtly context shape the production of artworks during the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Were the careers of artists at court substantially different from those who worked for other kinds of patrons? Focusing on graphic arts and decorative arts as well as painting and sculpture, we will study the relation between images and their social, cultural and intellectual contexts in four major courts. We will read about the political and religious issues at play in this period which saw the formation of absolutist governments, and we will study the primary literature on the courtier and courtly behaviour. The methods of social historians and anthropologists will be introduced in relation to recent studies of court culture. The role of the visual arts in multi-media court pageantry will be a thread followed through the course. Artists to be studied will include Caravaggio, Bernini, Goltzius, Callot, Le Brun, Velázquez.

This course will address the issue of art historical methodologies through close examination of a series of architectural projects undertaken by Michelangelo in the sixteenth century. The work of scholars on buildings and schemes such as the Medici Chapel (or New Sacristy) at S. Lorenzo and the Laurentian Library, both in Florence, highlights a range of different methodological approaches to the study not only of architecture and art history but also to the figure of the artist/architect. Thus, too, the course will also consider the creation and presentation of the biography of the artist, in particular the contemporary accounts by Vasari and Condivi, (students might also like to consider the well-known Carol Reed 1965 film of Irving Stone's novel The Agony and the Ecstasy). These are important not only for how they have fashioned our view of Michelangelo himself but also for broader constructs and understandings of the image and figure of ‘the artist’.

This course looks at the corpus of writing that has accumulated around the art of William Hogarth (1697-1764), the artist and print maker who was active in London in the middle decades of the eighteenth century. Readings will range from contemporary reactions to the most recent art historical scholarship. As we explore the posthumous development of Hogarthian commentary - and the lively and disputatious state of Hogarthian studies - a key aim is to investigate the sort of ideas that circulate (and continue to resonate) in the historiography.

Hogarth was celebrated and vilified during his lifetime and after his death a succession of texts fixed a number of different identities for the artist. He has been described as a moralist and a modernist; as a political artist and a comic artist. Increasingly, he has become the quintessential English artist. Hogarth has been fully assimilated into the national canon and more than any other artist he is has come to stand in for the eighteenth century. This course will look at the processes through which these positions were reached.

This course introduces students to historical and contemporary photography in London collections and special exhibitions. Now ubiquitous in museum and gallery displays, photography was long regarded as documentation devoid of artistic value and excluded from or marginalized in institutional displays and collections. This course will consider how the perception and reception of the medium has changed, and how this shift is reflected in both historical and contemporary displays in London through lectures and visits to a range of art institutions. The course will consider the medium’s relationship to different institutional mandates, with particular attention to how it is collected, displayed and interpreted in different venues and for different audiences. Students will also engage in literature relating to a wide scope of perspectives on fine art photography, offering an opportunity to examine the historical trajectory of photography’s integration into the art world, as well as to think about current issues and strategies in relation to photography as contemporary art.

How do we experience clothing? The spaces and environments in which we wear and encounter clothes influence our responses to them. Clothing and textiles’ tactile qualities are crucial to our experiences and perceptions of dress. Natural and synthetic fibres feel different against our skin, and affect our relationship to clothes. In addition, their visual impact is intrinsic to our reception and understanding and to the social and cultural values with which they are imbued. We experience dress and textiles through smell – from the fragrant oils added to seventeenth century gloves, to the pungent aroma of old, unwashed clothes, to the evocative scent of someone’s skin on their clothes. Equally, we can hear our clothes – the rustle of full silk skirts, or the creaking sound of a leather jacket as we move. We will explore our perceptions of dress, fashion and textiles through examination of objects, images, novels, diaries and oral histories.