Programme of Lectures 2011-2012
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Fowden Hall is being refurbished in February/March - in particular the entrance will be between the hall and refectory
- 15th February 2012
PARIS 1850/1900: THE WORLD'S MOST DECADENT CITY
Lecturer: Linda Collins
This lecture looks at the lively fin de siecle Paris – the entertainment and the artists. From academic art, the early benchmark of good taste, we work through the Impressionists, the post-Impressionists to Picasso's Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon, often recognised as the first cubist painting. Art history and fun.
PROGRAMME for 2011-12
- 21st September 2011
Lecturer: Valerie Woodgate
ART TREASURES OF PARIS
Paris is a treasure house for the art lover. We look at the treasures of the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay and other less well known museums including the Musée Cluny and Musée Picasso. We also examine some of the external sculptures of Notre Dame and the magnificent interior of the Sainte Chapelle. - 19th October 2011
Lecturer: Dr Laura de Beden
VENETIAN LANDSCAPES: PALLADIO, VIVALDI, SCARPA
Three charismatic figures of Venetian art form the core of this lecture: 2 architects, Andrea Palladio and Carla Scarpa and Antonio Vivaldi, musician. They operated under the spell of this magical city, creating supreme masterpieces. Excerpts from Vivaldi will conclude the lecture accompanying the presentation of beautiful images. - 16th November 2011
NB Change from original programme
Lecturer: Peter Medhurst
Music on the Grand Tour
Peter takes a look at 18th century Italian music making – the composers, the performers, the musical forms and styles – and determines what it was that drew so many musical and art-loving travellers south time and time again. - 18th January 2012
Lecturer: Dr Paul Roberts
SICILIAN SPENDOURS: GREECE TO THE NORMANS
The talk focuses on Sicily’s rich architectural and artistic heritage. From the Greeks, whose colonies such as Agrigento, Syracuse and Segesta preserve stunning ruins to the museums at Palermo and Syracuse with superb pottery, stone and bronze artefacts. With the Romans came peace and prosperity, reflected in beautiful public buildings and decoration of private villas. Finally, we look to Norman Sicily with its art heavily influenced by the Byzantine East. - 15th February 2012
Lecturer: Linda Collins
PARIS 1850/1900: THE WORLD'S MOST DECADENT CITY
This lecture looks at the lively fin de siecle Paris – the entertainment and the artists. From academic art, the early benchmark of good taste, we work through the Impressionists, the post-Impressionists to Picasso's Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon, often recognised as the first cubist painting. Art history and fun. - 21st March 2012
Lecturer: David Evans
THE LIFE AND WORK OF SIR ALFRED MUNNINGS, P.R.A.
‘AJ’ is famed for his vigorous paintings of horses, their owners, racing, country life and the East Anglian scene. This illustrated guide through his life and work includes the less well known period during which he spent much of his time in Cornwall and which had a crucial effect on his life and work. It concludes with his amazing racing pictures. - 18th April 2012
Lecturer: Alexandra Drysdale
ON THE WAY TO THE WEDDING
The lecture examines depictions of different types of love in art, from the darkness of the Demon Lover to the light of the Divine Lover. - 16th May 2012
Lecturer: Charles Beauclerk
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF NELL GWYN - 1650 TO 1687
Nell’s 17 year relationship with King Charles II is one of the great love stories of English history. Comic actress, court jester, enfant terrible, Nell was the only royal mistress ever to increase her monarch’s popularity. Her experiences ran the social gamut from London waif to royal mistress. Her son was made a Duke while her mother died in a ditch. - 20th June 2012
Lecturer: Nicholas Watkins
THE HORSE, MODERNITY AND MODERN ART
The lecture includes Stubbs’ classic depictions of thoroughbred horses, Degas’ use of sequential photography, Duchamp Villon’s fusing of equine and mechanical parts, Gaugin’s Blue Rider, the fascists’ view of the horse as a symbol of authority and Picasso’s Guernica, where the horse is a symbol of war. The lecture concludes by examining the work of leading contemporary artists. - 11th July 2012
7.45pm AGM
8.15pm BY THE SEA, THE BEAUTIFUL SEA
Lecturer: Marina Vaizey
From ocean to beach, rivers and waterways, the fascination of water for artists is explored; Constable to Turner, Courbet to Monet, Winslow Homer to John Singer Sargent, Whistler to Sickert. - 19th September 2012
Lecturer: Anthea Streeter
BRITISH ARCHITECTURE NOW!
The lecture considers the several strands of the British architectural scene. It addresses Neo-Modernism, Deconstruction and Biomorphic architecture as well as the new country houses by Quinlan Terry and others and the importance of Archigram’s imaginative designs of the 1960s.
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