Art Historian Dr Matthew Whyte offers a new lecture series, which takes the audience on an art-filled journey through the often beautiful, sometimes scandalous, and always fascinating moments in the development of Western civilisation.

The lectures can be attended as a series, but are also designed as standalone talks, which can be attended individually.

Dr Whyte has lectured in Art History in University College Cork since 2014, where he completed his PhD in the art and culture of Renaissance Italy.

Week 3: Irish Art in the Age of Enlightenment

This lecture explores Irish art in the Age of Enlightenment, a period shaped by new ideas about reason, education, and cultural exchange in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It will examine how the Grand Tour played a crucial role in the development of Irish artists, exposing them to classical antiquity, Renaissance art, and contemporary European painting, and how these experiences influenced artistic ambition and style on their return home. The lecture will consider the emergence of a more confident and outward-looking Irish visual culture, shaped by travel, patronage, and international networks. Particular attention will be given to artists such as Daniel Maclise, whose historical and literary paintings reflect Enlightenment interests in narrative and moral inquiry, and Joseph Arthur O’Connor, whose landscapes reveal the impact of continental traditions combined with a distinctive Irish sensibility. This week will illuminate how Irish artists engaged with Enlightenment ideals while negotiating questions of identity, place, and modernity.

1. Tues 20 Jan
Monastic Ireland

2. Tues 27 Jan
Ireland and the Academy

3. Tues 3 Feb
Irish Art in the Age of Enlightenment

4. Tues 10 Feb
Irish Artists Abroad

5. Tues 17 Feb
The National Collection in Cork’s Crawford Art Gallery

6. Tues 24 Feb
Irish Contemporary Art