THEME I: ART, RELIGION AND SOCIETY
Course 1: Dr Cecily Hennessy
Nike to Angel: The Inception of Early Christian Art
 £420

THIS COURSE IS NOW FULL. PLEASE DO LET US KNOW IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE PLACED ON A WAITING LIST.


Christian imagery is central to our knowledge and experience of western art during the past two millennia.  This course explores the origins and influences of that imagery as it appears in wall paintings and monumental mosaics, in ivories, metalwork and manuscripts. In order to gain a perspective on its roots and influences, we look at key images and symbols from the pre-Christian world. We analyse their meanings and significance and discuss how they gained new interpretations when borrowed and adapted for fundamental aspects of Christian iconography. We also examine the role of art in religious belief and practice, focusing on key sites, such as Dura Europas in modern Syria and fascinating late antique cities, such as Ravenna, Rome and Constantinople as well as questioning major visual concepts such as the representation of Christ and of the Virgin. Visits include a special handling session at the British Museum.




THEME II: ART AND LIFE IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE

NEW COURSE

Course 2: Professor Paul Crossley
'A New Heaven and A New Earth': The Gothic Cathedral in France and England
£445

 

The Gothic church, with its vast and complex architecture, its monumental sculpture, its richly ornamented stained glass and handsome textiles, is impressive both visually and intellectually.  The Gothic adventure begins in northern France, in and around Paris, in the mid 12th century, and reaches its political apogee a hundred years later. It elicited some of the most daring feats of structural engineering in the history of western Europe; but it combined this technology with a genius for invention, as much in its marginal grotesques as in its mainstream  spaces.   It housed the bodies of saints, whose cults attracted international pilgrimage, and it provided pantheons and platforms for the cults of kings.  At the same time, under its high vaults, it sheltered small-scale and infinitely precious works of liturgical art – ars sacra – which transformed these giant structures into shelters for public worship and private devotion. In a brutal and flawed world, these great churches erected a utopian vision of heaven, promulgated by the medieval Church and its ministers, but also supported by kings and their courts.

You may also be interested in Professor Crossley’s Study Tour to the cathedrals of Ely and Lincoln from 7-8 May 2010.



THEME III: THE ARTS IN ITALY FROM THE LATER MIDDLE AGES TO THE RENAISSANCE

NEW COURSE

Course 3: Dr Janet Robson

The Art of the Friars in Early Renaissance Italy c. 1250–1470

£420

THIS COURSE IS NOW FULL. PLEASE DO LET US KNOW IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE PLACED ON A WAITING LIST.

The new mendicant orders of Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinian Hermits and Carmelites (otherwise known as the Friars) were the leading patrons for religious art in early Renaissance Italy, where their monumental churches dominated the city skylines. With their new saints and their engagement with the wealthy urban elite of bankers and merchants, the Friars brought major changes in religious devotion and spirituality. This, combined with the spirit of competition between the different orders, generated new forms of artworks and a rapid development in the iconography and style of altarpieces, fresco cycles and tombs. The Friars commissioned all the leading artists of the day: we will study frescoes and panel paintings in Assisi, Florence and Siena, including works by Giotto, Duccio, Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti; Fra Angelico’s frescoes in San Marco, Florence; Piero della Francesca’s Legend of the True Cross fresco cycle in Arezzo; and the Brancacci Chapel in the Carmine. The course will include visits to the National Gallery, The Courtauld Gallery and the V&A.


THEME IV: THE ARTS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE: MEDIA, MATERIALS, TECHNIQUES AND PHILOSOPHIES

Course 4: Dr Susie Nash and Clare Richardson

Early Netherlandish Painting and Technical Art History

The fee for this course is £485 as the group will be limited to 10 students; this also includes the cost of course materials.

THIS COURSE IS NOW FULL. PLEASE DO LET US KNOW IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE PLACED ON A WAITING LIST.

painted tryptch attributed to Robert Campin, with crucifixion on the left, emtombment in the cenre and resurrection on the right
Master of Flemalle, Entombment Triptych, Detail, © The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

This course will examine the way early Netherlandish painters made their images, and the way we investigate aspects of that making. It will consider the properties of oil and egg tempera, how panels were made and prepared, how works were designed and underdrawn, and how they were brought to completion in the application of the paint layers. To consider these aspects we shall investigate works of art in the conservation studio of The Courtauld Institute of Art, as well as in the gallery there and in the National Gallery. We shall consider how we can discover various aspects concerning the making of panel paintings by different means from close looking with the naked eye and with magnification, through to paint sampling, x-radiography, and infrared reflectography and by replicating their techniques ourselves. The purpose is not just to understand how Netherlandish painters such as the Master of Flemalle, Jan Van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling and Hugo van der Goes created their works, but also to understand the implications of how we study that creative process, how we understand and accommodate changes over time, and how technical methods can be used by the art historian in the service of investigating meaning, function and audience as well as the physical processes of making a work of art.


THEME V: ART AND SOCIETY IN NORTHERN EUROPE

Course 5: Dr Richard Williams

Dürer and Venice

£420

 

When Albrecht Dürer arrived in Venice artists there received him with great honour but also with a degree of jealousy. The technical brilliance of his graphic work had made a big impact in Italy, yet his paintings were said to lack such qualities as the deep, rich colour for which Venetian art was renowned. Dürer was determined to learn from Italian art before returning to effect a revolution, a ‘renaissance’ in the arts back in Germany. Close links between Venice and Germany had been long established and this course will examine this direct cultural cross-fertilisation. The works of Dürer and other German painters and sculptors influenced by Italian art will be contrasted with others, such as Cranach, who seemed determined to create a more distinct Germanic style. Paintings by Venetian artists such as Bellini and Giorgione will also be studied for their indebtedness to Dürer and Northern art. Original works will be examined at first hand during visits to major museum and gallery collections in London.



THEME VI: ART IN BRITAIN, THE NETHERLANDS AND ITALY

NEW COURSE

Course 6: Dr Paula Henderson

‘All Gardening is Landscape Painting’

£445

 

The English landscape garden is deemed  one of the great achievements of British art, admired and imitated throughout the world. The radical shift from the rigid formality of the late 17th-century garden, epitomised by Louis XIV’s Versailles, was inspired by new political and philosophical ideas that also resulted in a return to the Palladian style of architecture. We will consider the role of important patrons, such as Lord Burlington, Lord Cobham and Henry Hoare and of innovative designers, from Charles Bridgeman and William Kent in the first half of the 18th century, to the ‘improvements’ of ‘Capability’ Brown and his successor, Humphry Repton, at the end.  If, as Alexander Pope wrote, ‘all gardening is landscape painting’, we must ask how these gardens reflected the work of great artists.  Similarly, Horace Walpole wrote that ‘every journey is made through a succession of pictures’, which raises the question of how ‘painterly’ elements were achieved in the landscape garden.   The role of sculpture will also be explored, as it emphasised links with ancient Rome in England’s ‘Augustan’ age and gave meaning to gardens.  Equally significant were garden buildings, designed by many of the finest architects of the day, which helped to inspire the eclecticism of the Victorian age.  Visits will include the National Gallery, the RIBA drawings collection at the V&A, and Chiswick House.  We will spend a full day exploring the 18th-century landscapes at Claremont and Painshill.



THEME VII: There is no course in Theme VII for this week

THEME VIII: MATERIAL CULTURE, FASHION AND THE ARTS OF DESIGN

NEW COURSE

Course 7: Dr Rebecca Arnold and Beatrice Behlen

Fashion in London/London in Fashion

£420
N.B. We regret that due to unforeseen circumstances this course had to be cancelled
1950s black and white photo; street scene with two young men leaning against a fountain, dressed in the 'Teddy boy' style
Henry Grant, Two men dressed in the 'Teddy boy' style, 1953, ©Henry Grant Collection/Museum of LondonThis season, London Fashion Week celebrated its 25th anniversary.  Its shows were held in the courtyard of Somerset House, its classical façade providing a backdrop for the myriad styles produced by the city’s designers.  But what does London fashion represent?  What do Londoners wear? Where do they read about and buy fashion?  And how has this changed since the early twentieth century? This course will explore the ways designers from Lucile to Mary Quant and Vivienne Westwood to Christopher Kane have shaped the way London fashion is viewed, as it has evolved as a fashion city.  We will examine surviving dress in the Museum of London’s storeroom, to see what people wore, how it was made and what it meant.  We will also consider how fashion connected to its wider social and cultural contexts, and how it connected to art, film, theatre and popular culture.  A wide range of visual, literary and documentary evidence, and visits to relevant museums and archives will be used, and we will walk around areas of the city that are key to London fashion – past and present.  We will explore the ways fashion connects to national and personal identity and how it has shaped the image of London itself.

 

 

THEME IX: MODERNISM AND BEYOND

Course 8: Dr Richard Cork

Making it New: Modernism in the Early 20th Century

£420

THIS COURSE IS NOW FULL. PLEASE DO LET US KNOW IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE PLACED ON A WAITING LIST.

With seismic explosiveness, young artists across Europe changed the course of painting and sculpture soon after the new century began. A series of revolutionary movements erupted, beginning with Fauvism in France and Expressionism in Germany. The Italian Futurists were the most clamorous but the Cubists in Paris proved the most far-reaching. Then, in 1914, London was shocked by the advent of Vorticism and its rumbustious magazine BLAST. This course explores the rebellious momentum of an exciting period. However, it terminates in the tragedy of the First World War when many avant-garde artists found themselves caught up in a blood-bath. Visits include The Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery’s display of 20th-century art, Tate Modern, the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art and the Imperial War Museum.