FORGED BY MANY CULTURES, PART II: EASTERN SICILY

NEW TOUR

James McDonaugh

Sunday 1 – Wednesday 4 May 2011

£500

The tour continues our exploration of Sicily’s fascinating (art) history and of the layers of civilisations that shaped it.  This year, we will head to the Eastern shores of the island to experience the treasures of Syracuse, of Piazza Armerina and of Sicily’s finest baroque cities.  Syracuse is one of the jewels in Sicily's crown and Ortygia (where we will be staying) remains one of the most unspoilt historical city centres in Italy. Its Duomo is in itself a carved history of western architecture and its archaeological remains are among Sicily's most magnificent.  One of the highlights of our tour will be the Roman mosaics at Piazza Armerina. These are unique in scale and were one of the wonders of the Roman world.   Sicily is, of course, also famed for its exuberant baroque art and architecture.  The towns of Noto, Ragusa and Modica – off the beaten tourist track and now protected by UNESCO - contain the island’s richest concentration of baroque architecture.   We will reach Eastern Sicily via Catania, the island’s second largest city, which also has stunning baroque palaces and churches. Last but not least we will also visit the dramatically situated town of Enna, Italy's highest provincial capital.

DREAMING SPIRES AND PRE-RAPHAELITE SCHOLARS: VICTORIAN OXFORD

NEW TOUR

Ayla Lepine

Saturday 11 – Sunday 12 June 2011

£200 

From William Holman-Hunt’s The Light of the World in Keble College to the tapestries of William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones in Exeter College, Oxford is rich in Victorian history and objects. The Oxford Union’s Arthurian murals by Morris, Rossetti, Faulkner and Burne-Jones represented an important beginning for what would become Morris & Company. The Ashmolean Museum and its Pre-Raphaelite art collection can be explored alongside Deane and Woodward’s Natural History Museum. The latter was strongly influenced by John Ruskin, who lectured at the university and gave his name to the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. Walter Pater, who coined the phrase ‘art for art’s sake’ and wrote The Renaissance, was a favourite tutor of Oscar Wilde. Magdalen, Wilde’s college, employed the architects G. F. Bodley and Thomas Garner to design St. Swithun’s Quadrangle, one of the most sophisticated Victorian buildings in Oxford. Its complexity is comparable to T. G. Jackson’s Examination Schools in a Jacobean style, and Bodley and Garner’s Gothic Revival work for Christ Church College and its cathedral, which also features Morris & Co. stained glass. The city of ‘dreaming spires’ affords an extraordinary opportunity to experience the beauty and innovation of Victorian art and architecture.

ROME AND THE EAST: POLITICS, POWER AND RELIGION FROM THE BIRTH OF CHRISTIANITY UNTIL 1300

Dr Eileen Rubery           

Friday 16 – Sunday 18 September 2011

 £400

This three day study tour will explore relations between Rome and the East from the time that Saint Peter and Saint Paul came to Rome up until the time the papacy moved to France at the beginning of the 14th century. We will discuss the ‘Christianisation’ of Rome following Constantine the Great’s arrival and explore how art in Rome reflected struggles with the Eastern Empire over the nature of the balance between Christ’s humanity and divinity.  What effect did the Papacy’s defence of iconoclasm have on Roman art?  What did art in Carolingian Rome look like? Visits aim to include the church of S Maria Antiqua, (a complete church from the 6th- 9th century, full of frescoes with many eastern features, including the only western example of tetramorph angels) which is not normally open to the public; the catacombs of Saint Priscilla (which include many of the earliest Christian images from the 3rd and 4th centuries) and the Pope’s sancta sanctorum, the lavishly decorated private chapel of the Popes in the Lateran complex; also with restricted access.

HISTORIC GARDENS OF THE COTSWOLDS

NEW TOUR   

Dr Paula Henderson

Friday 23 – Sunday 25 September 2011

£350

The Cotswold hills, with their mellow stone cottages, elegant manor houses, and imposing castles, have some of the most important historic gardens in England.  This study trip will concentrate on gardens from the late 17th century to the early 20th century, beginning with a visit to Badminton House (home of the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort), where we will be accompanied by the eminent architectural historian, John Harris.  On Saturday, we will start at Croome Park, ‘Capability’ Brown’s first complete commission and the one on which he continued working throughout his life.  In the afternoon we will visit two of the quirkiest English landscape gardens: Painswick Rococo Garden and Sezincote (t.b.c.), a ‘Hindoo’ garden, partially attributed to Humphry Repton. Finally, on Sunday, we will concentrate on two 20th-century gardens: Hidcote, described by Vita Sackville-West as a ‘flawless example of what a garden should be’ and either Snowshill or Abbotswood.  Because of the distances involved, we will travel together by coach. The meeting point will be in Stow-on-the-Wold, which has hotels and B&Bs in all price ranges. 

 

CITIES OF PILGRIMS AND CRUSADERS: MEDIEVAL TOULOUSE AND ALBI

Dr Alexandra Gajewski

Friday 7 – Sunday 9 October 2011

 £400 

Walking in the footpath of pilgrims and crusaders, our Study Tour will be based in Toulouse , the ancient capital of the Languedoc , and include a day-trip to Albi, the city that gave its name to the Albigensian crusade. Toulouse , France ’s “ville rose”, has preserved large parts of its medieval cityscape: we will visit the vast, Romanesque abbey church of Saint-Sernin , the thirteenth-century Dominican church, the Gothic cathedral, and the Musée des Beaux Arts, housed in the fourteenth-century Augustinian convent. At Albi, we will visit the fortress-like cathedral with its fifteenth-century paintings, the bishop’s palace, and the vieil Albi (there will also be time to visit the Museum of Toulouse-Lautrec ). All along, we will discuss the turbulent history of the region which maintained its separate identity throughout the Middle Ages. 

POWER, FAITH AND SPLENDOUR: MADRID IN THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE HABSBURG AND BOURBON RULE

NEW TOUR   

Edward Payne

Friday 14 – Sunday 16 October 2011

£400

The city of Madrid served as both the seat of political power and the centre of artistic patronage throughout the Habsburg and Bourbon dynasties. The ‘Golden Age’ of Spain, which refers in particular to artworks produced during King Philip IV’s reign from 1621 to 1665, was a period marked by the rise of exceptional artistic achievement and the formation of rich painting collections in the capital. Chief among the artists of the Spanish School were Velázquez, court painter to Philip IV, and Ribera, the majority of whose career was spent in Naples, then a Spanish possession. Other distinctive figures who shaped the development of early modern Spanish art include El Greco, Zurbarán, Murillo and Goya. From museums to palaces, from El Greco to Goya, this study trip explores the striking wealth and diversity of works by these masters in Madrid, examining the intimate and problematic relations between art patronage, production and collection. Visits feature the outstanding collections of early modern Spanish paintings, prints and drawings in the Museo del Prado, the works on display in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, the Real Academia de Bellas Artes, and a day trip to the Escorial. 

 

 

LECTURERS' BIOGRAPHIES

James McDonaugh has an MA in philosophy and theology from Oxford University, and an MA in architectural history from The Courtauld. His research and lecturing interests focus on Italy, Greece and Turkey. Since 2003 he has worked for numerous academic groups and touring companies and in 2008 he set up his own touring company – Art Tours Ltd - dedicated to taking groups on cultural tours all over Europe and beyond. He regularly takes tours to Sicily, most recently in 2010 for The Courtauld.  

Ayla Lepine is a Visiting Lecturer at The Courtauld, where she has just completed her PhD thesis on Victorian sacred space and intellectual culture.  A specialist in Victorian art and architecture, she teaches and lectures at The Courtauld, the V&A, and Love London. Ayla also works part-time as a historic buildings researcher for Donald Insall Associates.  She is co-editor of Gothic and its Legacies (forthcoming 2011), and a member of a number of relevant learned societies, including  the Victorian Society, the Pugin Society and the Soane Study Circle, among other. 

Dr Eileen Rubery came to Art History after a career in Medicine and the Civil Service.  She completed her MA in Byzantine and Medieval Art at The Courtauld in 2002.  Her current research is on aspects of patronage of the Popes in Byzantine Rome, and their relationship with the Eastern Empire. Eileen has published several papers on aspects of this subject. She lectures for Cambridge Continuing Education Department, the Victoria and Albert Museum and Birkbeck College, London.

Dr Paula Henderson has an MA and PhD in architectural history from The Courtauld. She lectures widely in Britain and in the United States and has published over thirty articles on English houses and their settings.  Her book, The Tudor House and Garden: architecture and landscape in the 16th and early 17th centuries (Yale University Press), won the Berger Prize for the outstanding contribution to the history of British art for 2005. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.  She and her husband have lived (and gardened) in the Cotswolds for almost thirty years.

Dr Alexandra Gajewski studied for her doctorate (on Gothic architecture in northern Burgundy) at The Courtauld Institute of Art. Since then she has taught at various London universities and as Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Dr Gajewski lives in the South of France and commutes regularly to Madrid, where she is currently engaged at the Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales working on an international project on medieval women. 

Edward Payne has served as a Visiting Lecturer at The Courtauld Institute of Art from 2007-10. He has taught a variety of courses with particular emphasis on early modern Spanish art and Rubens. In 2009, Edward held a three-month Rome Award at the British School at Rome, and in 2007-8 he worked as a Print Room Assistant in The Courtauld Gallery Prints and Drawings Room. Edward is currently completing his PhD thesis, Violence and Corporality in the Art of Jusepe de Ribera.

Study Tours Archive: 2010

rome and the east: politics, power and religion from the birth of christianity until 1300

NEW TOUR
Dr Eileen Rubery

Friday 26 March – Sunday 28 March 2010

£400

This three day study tour will explore relations between Rome and the East from the time that Saint Peter and Saint Paul came to Rome up until the time the papacy moved to France at the beginning of the 14th century. We will discuss the ‘Christianisation’ of Rome following Constantine the Great’s arrival and explore how art in Rome reflected struggles with the Eastern Empire over the nature of the balance between Christ’s humanity and divinity.  What effect did the Papacy’s defence of iconoclasm have on Roman art?  What did art in Carolingian Rome look like? Visits aim to include the church of S Maria Antiqua, (a complete church from the 6th- 9th century, full of frescoes with many eastern features, including the only western example of tetramorph angels) which is not normally open to the public; the catacombs of Saint Priscilla (which include many of the earliest Christian images from the 3rd and 4th centuries) and the Pope’s sancta sanctorum, the lavishly decorated private chapel of the Popes in the Lateran complex; also with restricted access.

Forged by Many Cultures: Sicily through the Ages

NEW TOUR

James McDonaugh

Thursday 29 April – Sunday 2 May 2010

£500
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS TOUR IS NOW FULL. PLEASE LET US KNOW IF WE WOULD LIKE TO JOIN A WAITING LIST.

‘To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything’ (Goethe, ‘Italian Journey’, 13 April 1787). This tour is designed to provide an overview of the layers of history that make Sicily arguably the richest region for art and architecture in Italy. The line of Sicily’s rulers has included Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Hohenstaufen emperors, Angevins, Aragonese, Spanish Hapsburgs, Spanish Viceroys and even the British. The result is an unparalleled mix of cultural influences, which led the author of ‘The Leopard’ Giuseppe de Lampedusa to describe Sicily as ‘…the America of antiquity’. We will focus on the western region of the island;  based  in Palermo, we will visit  key sites in the city and its environs:  the Greek temple and theatre at Segesta, Roman bronzes in the archaeological museum in Palermo, the great Norman mosaics at Monreale, and the sumptuous Sicilian baroque of Palermo. In particular we will focus on how artistic styles from very different backgrounds coalesce to form a single thread, for example the hybrid Arab-Norman architecture of the 12th century. 

from god's castle to the heavenly jerusalem: the cathedrals of ely and lincoln

Professor Paul Crossley

Friday 7 May to – Saturday 8 May 2010

£200

Ely and Lincoln best represent the power and piety of English medieval architecture and offer contrasting, but complementary visions of what a great cathedral should look like. Ely was a Fenland Benedictine monastery, and its flourishing cult of St Etheldreda ensured that its great church would always be a splendid backdrop for pilgrims and pilgrimage.  Ely is rich in visual delights and also offers a special insight into how liturgy and space articulate an interior, and shape the church’s outlook onto the world beyond its monastery.  Its crossing tower, the famous ‘octagon’ is a spectacular mixture of carpentry and masonry, and it dominates the fens like a vision of St Etheldreda’s crown. Lincoln, by contrast, was a secular cathedral, administered by canons, and the site of one of the most prestigious cathedral schools in Europe.  Its west front has one of the most extensive cycles of Romanesque sculpture in England.  But unlike Ely most of the present cathedral was built to a relatively uniform style in the 13th century, and with a confidence and ingenuity that makes it the masterpiece of English high medieval architecture.  Like Ely it was a pilgrimage church, and its architecture and decoration underline that special function.  It was also the product of three architects of genius, so it offers us a unique insight into the workings of the English architectural imagination.  Lincoln, like Ely, dominates its landscape; its towers echoing those of the Heavenly City – ‘the many-towered city of Sion’.

amsterdam, the hague and rotterdam: netherlandish art of the golden age

Dr Matthias Vollmer

Friday 27 August – Sunday 29 August 2010

£400

In the 17th century, the arts, sciences and trade flourished to an unprecedented degree in the cities of the prosperous Low Countries.  Production of the fine and decorative arts thrived in Antwerp, Amsterdam, Delft, Haarlem and Utrecht and artists like Rembrandt, Rubens and Vermeer excelled in different artistic genres. History painting, portraiture, genre, landscape and still life painting all produced significant masterpieces in this period, which is rightly regarded as the Golden age of Netherlandish art.  We shall explore the development and variety of artistic expression in front of the originals in the outstanding collections of the museums in Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam.

byzantine istanbul

Dr Cecily Hennessy

Wednesday 1 September – Saturday 4 September 2010

£500

The great city of Constantinople lay at the heart of Byzantium and was to surpass Rome in its wealth and reputation. We examine the political and religious sites that remain in Istanbul, one of the most beautifully situated cities and itself a vibrant and fascinating centre. Visits include secular architecture, such as the massive city walls and a huge underground cistern, several former churches, including the legendary sixth-century church of Hagia Sophia and the Kariye Camii with its brilliant mosaics, as well as the vestiges of the renowned imperial palace and the fine archaeological museum. We also visit less well-known sites, such as the Fetiye Camii with its exquisite late Byzantine decorations, and examine the influence of Byzantium on the great Ottoman architect of the sixteenth century, Sinan.

with optional link to

byzantine cappadocia

NEW TOUR
Dr Cecily Hennessy

Sunday 5 September – Wednesday 8 September 2010

NEW TOUR

£500

In the heart of central Turkey, the region of Cappadocia has an astonishing landscape with stunning rock creations which contain a wealth of rock cut churches and monasteries from the Byzantine period. Many of these were painted with expressive and beautifully coloured paintings. Significant in preserving iconography and painting styles from the early years of Byzantium perhaps even from before Iconoclasm, the region also has key paintings from the 10th to 12th centuries. We will be based in Göreme, which itself has a group of important churches and take day excursions to valleys in the area to see some of the lesser known sites. There will be some walking, which may be steep and rugged.

This course may be taken in conjunction with the trip to Istanbul or separate from it.

Suggestions will be made for hotels in Göreme and Istanbul. A Turkish guide will accompany both trips. Travel during each course is provided.

AT HOME IN PARIS

Dr Caroline Levitt

Friday 17 September – Sunday 19 September 2010

£400

N.B: We regret that this tour had to be cancelled.

By visiting the homes and studios of artists and architects from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, we will build up an unusual and intimate narrative of the development of this period of art will be built up. The tour begins with the museum inaugurated by Gustave Moreau in his own house, where he taught his students, including  Matisse, Marquet and Rouault; André Breton, poet and leader of the Surrealists, visited Moreau’s museum-home and left profoundly affected. We will see the reconstructed studios of Breton and the sculptors Brancusi, Bourdelle and Zadkine, and will have a rare opportunity to visit the studio of Chana Orloff, which is conserved in a private home. Just outside of Paris, in Chambourcy, is the studio of André Derain and we will spend an afternoon there. Finally, Le Corbusier, known mainly for his architecture, was also a proficient artist, sculptor and tapestry-designer: we will examine his apartment-studio in Auteuil. This study tour requires no previous knowledge, but participants may be interested in Caroline Levitt’s Summer school course, which will introduce related issues.

art and architecture in renaissance rome

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

Thursday 23 September - Sunday 26 September 2010

£500

This study trip will centre upon the achievements of the ‘High Renaissance’ in Rome in the early decades of the 16th century.  There will be two visits to the Vatican to consider the Sistine Chapel, the papal apartments decorated by Raphael and the Belvedere courtyard with its collection of antiquities, including the ‘Laocoon’ and the ‘Apollo Belvedere’.  In addition to St. Peter’s, other churches like Sta. Maria del Popolo, S. Pietro in Montorio (especially Bramante’s ‘Tempietto’) and S. Pietro in Vincoli (for Michelangelo’s Julius II tomb) will be included in the itinerary, as will secular buildings such as the Villa Farnesina (with its mythological frescoes) and some Renaissance palaces. We will also visit The Capitol and its museum and place all these famous sites within the context of the urban renewal which the ‘eternal city’ underwent during this highly creative period.

the papal court of avignon

Dr Alexandra Gajewski

Friday 8 October – Sunday 10 October 2010

£400

Avignon, the city of the popes, is situated in the south of France and within a short distance of the Alps and Italy.  In 1309 the French pope Clement V moved the papal court from Rome to Avignon and the city remained the seat of successive popes and anti-popes until 1415.  During this time, papal patronage attracted artists from north and south of the Alps making Avignon a veritable melting pot of artistic production.  We will visit the papal palace, the Musée du Petit Palais and other important sites of the city, such as the cathedral Notre-Dame which houses papal tombs and the city fortifications.  One of the days will be spent on the other bank of the river Rhone, in Villeneuve-les-Avignon, to visit the Carthusian monastery founded by Pope Innocent VI.  We will also see the collegiate church of Notre-Dame and discuss Enguerrand Quarton’s painting of the Coronation of the Virgin from 1453.

Study Tours Archive: 2009

Thessaloniki: The 'Co-Queen' of Byzantium

Dr Cecily Hennessy
Friday 27 March - Sunday 29 March 2009
£400

 

Thessaloniki was a major Roman town and the main Byzantine centre in northern Greece until the fifteenth century, second only to Constantinople. It is now a vibrant city with a lively atmosphere steeped in its history and has several World Heritage sites. It has unparalleled early mosaics as well as remarkable decorations from later times. From the early period, these include a beautiful centrally planned building, the rotunda or Hagios Georgios, with idealised youthful saints, an exquisite apse mosaic in the church of Hosios David and remarkable pre-iconoclastic mosaics dated to the fifth and sixth centuries in the church of the city's patron saint, the beloved Demetrios. The churches from the later period include Hagia Sophia with its Virgin and Child in the apse, and the Panayia Halkeion as well as Saint Nicolaos Orphanos with paintings of the Saint's life.

Please note that Cecily Hennessy is also teaching a summer school course on the inception of early Christian art (13-17 July).

 

BYZANTINE ISTANBUL

Dr Cecily Hennessy
Thursday 16 April - Sunday 19 April 2009
£500

The great city of Constantinople lay at the heart of Byzantium and was to surpass Rome in its wealth and reputation. We examine the political and religious sites that remain in Istanbul, one of the most beautifully situated cities and itself a vibrant and fascinating centre. Visits include secular architecture, such as the massive city walls and a huge underground cistern, several former churches, including the legendary sixth-century church of Hagia Sophia and the Kariye Camii with its brilliant mosaics, as well as the vestiges of the renowned imperial palace and the fine archaeological museum. We also visit less well-known sites, such as the Fetiye Camii with its exquisite late Byzantine decorations, and examine the influence of Byzantium on the great Ottoman architect of the sixteenth century, Sinan.

You may also be interested in Cecily Hennessy’s summer school course on ‘Art and Society in Constantinople’ (20-24 July 2009).

 

FROM GOD'S CASTLE TO THE HEAVENLY JERUSALEM.  THE CATHEDRALS OF ELY AND LINCOLN

Professor Paul Crossley

Friday 8 May - Saturday 9 May 2009

£200

Ely and Lincoln best represent the power and piety of English medieval architecture and offer contrasting, but complementary visions of what a great cathedral should look like. Ely was a Fenland Benedictine monastery, and its flourishing cult of St Etheldreda ensured that its great church would always be a splendid backdrop for pilgrims and pilgrimage.  Ely is rich in visual delights and also offers a special insight into how liturgy and space articulate an interior, and shape the church’s outlook onto the world beyond its monastery.  Its crossing tower, the famous ‘octagon’ is a spectacular mixture of carpentry and masonry, and it dominates the fens like a vision of St Etheldreda’s crown. Lincoln, by contrast, was a secular cathedral, administered by canons, and the site of one of the most prestigious cathedral schools in Europe.  Its west front has one of the most extensive cycles of Romanesque sculpture in England.  But unlike Ely most of the present cathedral was built to a relatively uniform style in the thirteenth century, and with a confidence and ingenuity that makes it the masterpiece of English high medieval architecture.  Like Ely it was a pilgrimage church, and its architecture and decoration underline that special function.  It was also the product of three architects of genius, so it offers us a unique insight into the workings of the English architectural imagination.  Lincoln, like Ely, dominates its landscape; its towers echoing those of the Heavenly City – ‘the many-towered city of Sion’.

 

AMSTERDAM, THE HAGUE AND ROTTERDAM: NETHERLANDISH ART OF THE GOLDEN AGE

Dr Matthias Vollmer

Friday 28 August - Sunday 30 August 2009

£400

In the seventeenth century, the arts, sciences and trade flourished to an unprecedented degree in the cities of the prosperous Low Countries.  Production of the fine and decorative arts thrived in Antwerp, Amsterdam, Delft, Haarlem and Utrecht and artists like Rembrandt, Rubens and Vermeer excelled in different artistic genres. History painting, portraiture, genre, landscape and still life painting all produced significant masterpieces in this period, which is rightly regarded as the Golden Age of Netherlandish art.  We shall explore the development and variety of artistic expression in front of the originals in the outstanding collections of the museums in Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam.

BERLIN: ART IN GERMANY FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Dr Matthias Vollmer

Friday 4 September - Sunday 6 September 2009

£400

This study tour will introduce you to Berlin’s outstanding art collections, with their wide range of masterpieces from late medieval times to the present day, and also take you on a trip to the nearby city of Magdeburg to visit its impressive gothic cathedral.  We shall focus throughout on the particular circumstances that shaped the production and reception of German art, especially during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. During this long period, the formation of a German nation state and the problematic notion of a German national identity became intimately connected to the question of a German style and artistic expressions.  We shall explore Germany’s vibrant art history by focusing in depth on works by artists like Martin Schongauer and Albrecht Dürer, Caspar David Friedrich, Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Adolph Menzel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Otto Dix, Joseph Beuys and Anselm Kiefer. In addition to our trip to Magdeburg, we shall visit the following museums and galleries in Berlin: the Gemäldegalerie, the Bodemuseum, the Kupferstichkabinett (Collection of Drawings and Prints), the Nationalgalerie, and the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum.

 

RENAISSANCE VENICE

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

Thursday 17 September - Sunday 20 September 2009

£500

The unique visual form the Renaissance assumed in Venice will be the focus of this tour. We shall begin in the main square with a consideration of the political imagery of the city and the projection of its ‘myth’ there and in the nearby Doge’s Palace. The patronage of the lay confraternities or ‘scuole’ will then be appreciated at their magnificent meeting halls with narrative cycles by Carpaccio and others. There will be a focus on the development of the altarpiece and the Dogal tomb, above all in the context of the two great mendicant churches of SS. Giovanni e Paolo and the Frari. The gradual establishment of classical norms will also be studied in domestic and in ecclesiastical architecture, by looking at Gothic and Renaissance palaces along the Grand Canal and at churches designed by Codussi, Sansovino and Palladio. The Accademia Gallery and the Correr Museum will underpin our exploration of the history of Venetian painting from the Vivarini and Bellini families through to Giorgione, Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto.

AT HOME IN PARIS

Caroline Levitt

Thursday 24 September - 27 September 2009

£500

By visiting the homes and studios of artists and architects from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, we shall build up an unusual and intimate narrative of the development of this period of art. The tour begins with the museum inaugurated by Gustave Moreau in his own house, where he taught his students, including Matisse, Marquet and Rouault; André Breton, poet and leader of the Surrealists, visited Moreau’s museum-home and left profoundly affected. We shall see the reconstructed studios of Breton and the sculptors Brancusi, Bourdelle and Zadkine. Looking at sculptures will introduce the various ways in which artists at this time used, manipulated and distorted notions of classicism, a theme that will return in the work of Aristide Maillol and of Chana Orloff, whose studio is conserved in a private home and which we shall have a rare opportunity to visit. Finally, Le Corbusier, known mainly for his architecture, was also a proficient artist, sculptor and tapestry-designer: we shall examine his apartment-studio in Auteuil as well as the home he designed for the banker Raoul La Roche.

This study tour requires no previous knowledge, but participants may be interested in Caroline Levitt’s Summer school course (3-7 August), which will introduce related issues.

MONTPELLIER AND MEDIEVAL LANGUEDOC

Dr Alexandra Gajewski

Friday 9 October - Sunday 11 October 2009

£400

This study tour will visit some of the major sites of the medieval south of France and will include discussions on Romanesque and Gothic architecture and sculpture, and on medieval town planning.   The focus will be the city of Montpellier, one of the main economic and artistic centres of the medieval Languedoc.  Situated in the alluvial plain that descends from the Cevennes Mountains to the Mediterranean Sea, the city is first mentioned in the tenth century.  It quickly gained international prestige from trade with Genoa and Pisa, its celebrated university, and the political association with the kings of Aragon and of Mallorca; and just when the Black Death threatened to ruin its prosperity, it benefited from the support of the popes in Avignon.  We shall recreate the medieval cityscape that grew up around the first castle from the eleventh century, visit museums, the present cathedral (formerly the late Gothic chapel of a university college), and the twelfth-century church at Castelnau-le-Lez.  Until 1536, Montpellier had no cathedral.  We shall visit the Romanesque cathedral at Maguelone, a remote site situated on the coast among salt-lakes and flamingos.  Finally, a trip to the medieval town of Agde, which developed from a sixth-century Phoenician colony and shelters a fortified cathedral within its city walls, will offer a compelling comparison with Montpellier.

 

study tours archive: 2008

 

Ravenna: City of Mosaics

Dr Cecily Hennessy
Friday 15 February - Sunday 17 February 2008
£400

Ravenna is a marvel of Early Christian and Byzantine mosaics, housed in buildings dating to the fifth and sixth centuries when the city was the capital of the Roman Empire in the west. With a superbly decorated jewel-like mausoleum, built by Galla Placidia, two early baptisteries, and the beautifully designed biblical and imperial mosaics in San Vitale, the sites in Ravenna reveal the intrigue of history, theological rivalry and lavish patronage. The tour also visited San Apollinare in Classe.

Art and Architecture in Renaissance Rome

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

Thursday 27 March-Sunday 30 March 2008
£500

This course focused on the achievements of the “High Renaissance” in Rome, c. 1500-1527. There were two visits to the Vatican to consider the Sistine Chapel, the papal apartments decorated by Raphael and the Belvedere courtyard with its collection of antiquities,and included the ‘Laocoon’ and the ‘Apollo Belvedere’. In addition to St. Peter’s, other churches like Sta. Maria del Popolo, S. Pietro in Montorio (especially Bramante’s ‘Tempietto’) and S. Pietro in Vincoli (for Michelangelo’s Julius II tomb) were included on the itinerary as was secular buildings such as the Villa Farnesina with its mythological frescoes and, the Villa Madama. These monuments were placed within the context of the urban renewal, which the eternal city underwent during this highly creative period.

Byzantine Istanbul

Dr Cecily Hennessy
Thursday 17April - Sunday 20 April 2008
£500

The great city of Constantinople lay at the heart of Byzantium and was to surpass Rome in its wealth and reputation. We examined the political and religious sites that remain in Istanbul, one of the most beautifully situated cities and itself a vibrant and fascinating centre. Visits included secular architecture, such as the massive city walls and a huge underground cistern, several churches, including the legendary sixth-century church of Hagia Sophia and the Kariye Camii with its brilliant mosaics, as well as the vestiges of the renowned imperial palace and the fine archaeological museum. We were fortunate to gain access to several sites that are not normally open to the public.

Pompeii & Herculaneum: Reflections in Art

Prof Robin Cormack
Friday 16 May - Sunday 18 May, 2008
£400

This study tour explored some of the monuments and decorations of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and ended with a visit to the Museum of Archaeology in Naples, where many of the frescoes and other artefacts from Pompeii are on display. The tour also visited the Villa of Poppaea at Oplontis and saw the Carravagio altarpiece of the Seven Acts of Mercy in Naples.