(Buy one lecture for €25, or purchase all 6 lectures in the series for 20% off)
Starting this 16 September we have the intriguing Art History Reframed with Dr. Matthew Whyte. These lectures will focus on Pre-Raphaelites and take you on a journey through time all the way to Cubism and Abstract art.
1. The Pre-Raphaelites & The Birth of Modernism: In this first week, we explore the artists who looked back in order to move forward in the first breaths of modernism. Famously referred to as the Pre-Raphaelites, a name which these artists coined for themselves, the group looked back to the art of the Middle Ages as an act of resistance again the Royal Academy, whose control over artistic production and education was increasingly being perceived to be unjust. Pre-Raphaelite art draws inspiration from literature and nature, focusing on creating emotionally and spiritually evocative work.
2. Impressionism & Modern Life: This lecture explores the development of Impressionism, the style most commonly associated with the beautiful paintings of Claude Monet. These paintings and their loose style have become almost universally familiar. What drove these artists to paint like this? What does this new style seek to do? This lecture begins with the artist Édouard Manet, credited as one of the first artists to turn resolutely from the past and paint modern life. His focus on the fast and fleeting nature of French modernity spurred on the Impressionists to develop a new approach to capturing movement and atmosphere, the effects of modernity that would prove elusive to the new technology of photography.
3. Post-Impressionism: How do artists continue to capture a rapidly changing world? Following the birth of Modernity and the innovations of the Impressionists, artist continued to seek new ways to best capture and express the character of modern life. It was not long before the inventions of the Impressionists were subject to revision. In this lecture, we encounter artists such as Paul Cézanne, who attempted to tackle a problem that arose from the Impressionist focus on the fleeting: how could this art become like that of the museums if its subject was inherently impermanent?
4. The Artist’s Inner World — Expressionism & Surrealism: This week, we catch a glimpse inside the mind of the artist as we explore painters who sought to bring their inner world to life through their art. First, we encounter the new Expressionism which emerged through artists Vincent Van Gogh whose use of vivid colour and increasingly abstract lines famously paved the way for the wild new styles of Henri Matisse and the Fauvists. These artists, in particular Van Gogh, produced some of the most beloved and enduring images in the history of painting. With this impulse for artistic expression came the desire to use art as a vehicle for the exploring the innermost reaches of the mind – we encounter this through the response of Surrealists like Salvador Dalí to interest in the subconscious as a source of truth.
5. The New Industrial Era — Futurism to Pop Art: How did art respond to new technologies and their impact on society and culture? This week we explore this question by examining artistic movements which sought to address our relationship with a rapidly transforming world. In Italy, shortly after the turn of the 20th century, Futurism developed through an urge to turn away from the past and embrace the transformative power of industry for mankind. Soon after, World War I would demonstrate the full repercussions that industrial progress could have for humanity, driving artists to embrace concepts of futility and absurdity in creating new artforms. Finally, stepping into the post-war period of the 1950s, the emergence of Pop Art provides a fascinating insight into the transformation of culture in the age of commodity culture.
6. The World Transformed: Cubism to Abstract Art: This week we discuss the progressive fragmentation and transformation of painting, beginning with the innovative approach to breaking down the visual world made famous by Pablo Picasso and his Cubism. Seeking to capture and convey the underlying structures of the perceivable world, painting began to reduce forms to geometric shapes and simple colours. This did not end with Cubism, however. By the early 20th century, artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian would continue this process, seeing increasingly abstract art as a way to produce a spiritual response in viewers, relying on pure form and colour to provide a transcendental experience. Leading to the first truly abstract art, these important movements paved the way for the rich diversity of styles, concepts, and approaches which continue to inform art today.
Our Famous Paintings and Their Hidden Histories series then follows in October, in which Áine Andrews discusses paintings we are all familiar with, from the Birth Of Venus to the Nativity Window and so much more.
1. The Portrait of Hugh Lane by John Singer Sargent: A portrait of Hugh Lane by John Singer hangs today in the in the Dublin City art gallery that bears his name but for many years it had pride of place in Lane’s London home. Hugh Lane was born in Cork in 1875, but he was never to spend time there again, until, with tragic irony, he died when the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U boat in 1915 within sight of the Cork coastline. Lane is perhaps best known as Lady Gregory’s nephew and particularly for an unsigned codicil to his will which led to the controversy regarding Ireland’s right to the important Impressionist paintings previously owned by him. Little however is generally known of the collector’s life in London and his extraordinary successful career as a dealer of old master paintings as well as modern works of art.
2. The Weeping Woman by Pablo Picasso: The Weeping Woman is one of a series of portraits by Pablo Picasso that are among the most wrenching in the history of art. Their appearance in 1937 can be seen as emblems of the upheavals that convulsed Europe during the tumultuous years preceding World War II. His wife Olga and seventeen-year-old Marie Thérese Walter feature in some of the drawings and etchings but his new mistress, the photographer Dora Maar is the face most closely associated with the weeping woman.
3. Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds, and Pretzels by Clara Peeters: In Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds and Pretzels, Peeters captures the different ages of the cheeses and reflections in glass and metal. The handle of a finely crafted silver knife is directed towards the viewer as if inviting them to carve into the cheese but Peeters uses it also to sign her name in capitals on the side of the elaborately decorated handle. There is also another astonishing detail. A minute self-portrait in a white cap is reflected in the pewter lid of a ceramic jug behind the cheeses. The portrait proclaims the worthiness not only of being a painter, but of being a woman painter. We know little about the life of Clara Peeters, but there are some forty known paintings by this extraordinary skilled artist who had such great influence on the painters of the Northern Netherlands.
4. The Birth of Venus by Botticelli: Botticelli’s Birth of Venus was a sensation in its day for its depiction of the nude female body. It depicts the goddess of love and beauty arriving on the island of Cyprus, born of the sea spray and blown there by the winds on a giant scallop shell, as pure and as perfect as a pearl. But what of the hidden story of Simonetta Vespucci, the face of Venus with her fluttering gold red hair, who was the ‘most beautiful woman in Florence’ and a legend in her lifetime. Linked to the Medici, Lorenzo (the Magnificent) and his handsome brother, Guiliano, the details of Simonetta’s life have passed into history with her death at 22 years of age. Her beauty, however, remains with us because it so haunted the artist who so delicately portrayed her face in several other paintings.
5. The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio: Pope Francis held a deep admiration for Caravaggio, in spite of his controversial paintings and his reputation as a violent, provocative man who eventually killed someone in a brawl. Caravaggio’s art is also linked to Pope Leo’s order through the Basilica of St. Augustine, in the centre of Rome, which houses “The Madonna of the Pilgrims”. Art historians knew of The Taking of Christ but the painting itself was lost for several centuries. Over the years it became the most sought after Caravaggio masterpiece, until the unthinkable happened and it was found hiding in plain sight in a Jesuit house ‘in Dublin of all places’ in 1990. The painting has now returned to Dublin, but its fascinating story of course made it one of the Barberini exhibition’s most exciting highlights. Hopefully the new Pope got to see it in Rome but who knows, he may well have seen it on one of his many trips to Ireland.
6. Nativity Window by Evie Hone: Evie Hone’s Nativity has been widely reproduced, often as a Christmas card, but the history of the commission has only recently been fully documented. The Nativity was the first part of a suite of five windows commissioned in 1944, for the small chapel used by the community of St Stanislaus College at the Jesuit novitiate at Tullybeg Co Offaly. Evie Hone was born into an established Anglo-Irish family but the age of eleven she contracted polio which resulted in several operations and a lifelong disability. Undeterred, however, she embarked on a career in art, initially in painting with her great friend Mainie Jellett before joining An Túr Gloine to devote herself entirely to working in stained glass. In the 1990s, the Nativity and the other four windows were permanently moved to Manresa Jesuit Centre of Spirituality in Dollymount, Dublin, where they can be seen today.
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