The World’s Greatest Painters – in Six Evening Classes

Your tutor will introduce himself, get to know you, and give an overview of how the six week course will progress.

We discuss how, from the early part of the 1400s to around 1530 arose the highly influential period in art history known as the Italian Renaissance, in which a re-examination of the aesthetics of ancient Greek and Roman art provided inspiration for some of Europe's greatest artists.

We examine in more detail the life and art of four great Italian artists of the period:

§  Michelangelo

§  Leonardo da Vinci

§  Raphael

§  Titian

The class begins with an introduction to the Baroque period. Lasting from around 1600 to 1750, Baroque art developed against the backdrop of the Counter-Reformation, and was influenced by the encouragement of the Catholic Church that religious art should evoke an emotional response in the viewer. Baroque art is characterised by drama, rich colour and extravagance.

We investigate the lives and work of three of the period's greatest artists:

§  Caravaggio

§  Rubens

§  Rembrandt

We look at how the Enlightenment period of European history in the late 17th and the 18th century involved a heavy emphasis on the use of reason as the route to bettering the human condition, and how the Romantic Period in Art, spanning around 1780-1850 was a challenge to this ideal. We examine how Romantic artists sought to appeal to the senses, emotions and imagination as alternative ways of promoting the values of liberty and justice.

This evening we'll take a special look at these artists of the Romantic period:

§  Henry Fuseli

§  William Blake

§  J. M. W. Turner

§  Caspar David Friedrich

We discuss how Realism was a rejection of what was seen as the artificial idealisation and overly-emotional art of the Romantic period. Influenced by developments in the fields of sociology and philosphy as well as the spread of photography, the Realism movement in art was interested in the portrayal of ordinary men and women, and their lives, customs and living conditions.

Our focus this evening we will be on these Realist painters and their art:

§  Gustave Courbet

§  Jean-François Millet

§  Édouard Manet

The theme of our group this evening is the Impressionist period, lasting from about 1865-1885, which saw a new development in art in France whereby its practitioners started producing their work outside “en plein air”, in order to better incorporate the effect of sunlight in their landscapes and natural scenes. Work of the period is characterised by bold colours, the use of white, and short brush strokes or dabs of paint to convey the subtleties of shifting light and movement.

Today's session will put the spotlight on these Impressionist artists:

§  Claude Monet

§  Auguste Renoir

§  Edgar Degas

The Post-Impressionist movement is the name given to the reaction by several former adherents of the Impressionist style against the limitations of that genre. This session looks at how these artists are united not so much by a single style, but by their individual efforts to branch out from the narrow goal of capturing the effect of light on nature to expressing something more personal and rooted in their own feelings. As Cézanne expressed it: “A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art”. While each of the post-impressionists developed their own styles, characteristics common to the movement include the use of symbols, clearly visible short brush-strokes, and unrealistic or exaggerated colouring.

We conclude our tour of some the world's foremost painters with these post-impressionist artists:

§  Gustave Courbet

§  Georges Seurat

§  Vincent van Gogh

§  Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec