Art History Lectures - Autumn 2015

Art Lectures with art historian Adrian Sumner

Hartford Methodist Church Hall

Beach Road, Hartford, Northwich CW8 3AD

2.00pm - £5.00 including refreshments

Plenty of free car parking

Click here for a map to the venue

The Art of Britain
Tuesday 6 October

From a sleepy artistic backwater, dependent on foreign artists for its portraits and pageantry, to the cultural powerhouse we live in today, this lecture traces the erratic development of British Art.

The tides of history have almost washed clean the walls in many places, but we still do our best to track the traces of Medieval art, the Peculiar English Renaissance, and local variants of all the major international movements and isms.

With the Romantic Movement, however, we enter a helter-skelter of brilliance and invention, which takes Modernism in its stride and continues to astonish today.

Featured artists include; Holbein, Rubens and Van Dyck, Turner, Constable, Gainsborough, Blake and Wright of Derby, Pre-Raphaelites and Social realists, Bloomsbury Group, Camden Town Group and War Artists, Surrealists and Neo-Romantics, Pop, Op, YBAs and all the rest of this eternal band of eccentrics, geniuses and occasional frauds.

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This lecture links to our Heritage Tour to the British Art Show 8 in Leeds on Saturday 24 October.


The Art of Italy
Tuesday 3 November

A thrilling tour of 3000 years of art, from the Etruscans to the Futurists, via the Renaissance Florence of Botticelli and Leonardo (as well as other key Tuscan cities such as Pisa and Sienna), the Venice of Bellini and Titian, the Rome of Michelangelo, Raphael and the Baroque, and, of course, the Naples of Caravaggio, plus all points of interest and importance along the way.

For all who love the films of Fellini, and the ‘Dolce Vita’ generally.

What have the Romans ever done for us? Answers on a postcard please….

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The Art of Spain
Tuesday 8 December

An overview beginning with the caves of Altamira, journeying through Medieval, Romanesque, Baroque and Modernism, exploring the great Collections and Museums (Prado, Thyssen-Bornemisza, cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, Toledo, Seville and Cordoba, as well as the unique artistic personalities who define this country and culture (Velasquez, Goya, Picasso, Dali).

We also look at the Architecture of Gaudi and Modernismo (Spanish Art Nouveau), plus its remarkable legacy to be found in the Moroccan (Spanish?) city of Melilla, and the thrilling contemporary work of Santiago Calatrava.



Click here to book tickets online.

Download Art Lecture Flyer here.