Art History Classes available in London and Online

Each week a selection of paintings will be discussed by the class in front of the actual works. This is an opportunity to understand our national collection in greater depth by looking and discussing with students the paintings, while also affording them an opportunity to look at the actual paint, the physically/size of the images and thus the original uses of the objects. This course will also look at how and why paintings are placed gallery spaces, how there are lit, why some paintings are under glass and why some are not, and how different curators hang different rooms.Across this ten week the course we will also address the history and genesis of the National Gallery building itself in the context of the Collection. The National Gallery has a limited supply of stools available if you need them.

The course traces foreign artists from the Tudor period through to the Renaissance and Baroque, looking at their origins and how they came to work in England. It will examine the contributions of artists such as Holbein, Gerrit van Honthorst, William Dobson, Paulus van Somer, van Dyck, Peter Lely, and Rubens. It will ask how they influenced the British School of painting and assess their legacy.

What do all the strange signs and symbols in the paintings mean, and what is this fascination with Greek mythology all about? If it all seems impenetrable to you, and you like to find out what paintings really mean, this is the course for you. It will give you the tools to crack the hidden codes behind paintings in any art gallery, and indentify the seemingly mysterious figures in great works of art.

This course aims to look at the stories which are often re-told in secular and religious Italian Renaissance painting around, 1400-1600. Most often the stories came from antique literary sources which had survived through the middle ages and were the preserve of the rich and cultured.

Join broadcaster and author Leslie Primo on a journey to discover Western European art from classicism through to late Victorian art and Impressionism. On the course we will delve into the lives of various artists, their cultural backgrounds, and their influence on subsequent art movements.

Behind every great Renaissance painting is an equally astounding, some would say greater, Renaissance drawing. Indeed artists were judged firstly not by the quality of their paintings but by their grasp of, and skill in, drawing. Discover more about why and how great Renaissance works were created.

Different styles and periods will be presented in the following chronological order: pre-Renaissance – Gothic and Byzantine traditions; the Renaissance in Italy; the Renaissance in northern Europe; High Renaissance and Mannerism; Baroque and Rococo; Dutch art from the Golden Age; Neo-Classicism; Romanticism and Realism.

Each class will feature a selection of key paintings, sculpture and architecture and the major artists associated with that week’s style.

The National Portrait Gallery houses one of the world’s greatest portrait collections. As a collection of British portraits, it is also one of the best places to learn about British history. This course offers an accessible introduction to the Gallery and its collection. Each week we focus on a different aspect of portraiture, and the history of Britain represented by groups of portraits from the same period.

For the April starting course, meet on the Ground floor, Ondaatje Wing, at the bottom of the big escalator. For the November starting course, please wait for a meeting point to be emailed to you within a week of the course start date.

The course follows the display of portraits at the NPG which is currently organised into historical periods: Tudors; Stuarts; Georgians and Regency; Victorians; twentieth century and contemporary works. Each class will combine looking at elements of portraiture and thinking about the period of British history under review. Because the NPG is not primarily a collection of art, the course does not focus heavily on art history, however the tutor will present information on the history of art in Britain as part of the background to the study of British portraiture. The course will include a visit to the current temporary exhibitions (ticket price not included in the course fees).

Discover the life and work of Giotto, was one of the earliest artists to be written about within his lifetime, his genius held up as the ideal by Italian painting critics for the next five centuries.

Explore the fascinating gods and heroes of classical and post-classical art through relevant artworks. How popular were they in classical society? What roles did they play?

This course will explore in detail an artist that to this day is still seen as the very epitome of the ideals that aligned themselves with the term – Renaissance. Over a ten-week period we will chart the rise of Raphael beginning before his birth with the work of his father Giovanni Santi (c. 1435 – 1494) to the introduction of Raphael into the Santi studio. The course will then move on to the early works and the question of influence beyond his father’s workshop looking at contemporary artists in Raphael’s milieu, such as Perugino and the part they may or may not have played in those early formative years of Raphael’s artistic development. Raphael’s obsession with drawing and the integral part it played in his invention, design and printed works will also be explored in this ten-week course, but the tumultuous period of the Renaissance and Raphael’s part in it cannot be told without refence to Michelangelo and Leonardo both of whom he crossed paths with, nor can it be told without the competition that ensued between these great Renaissance masters. All will be revealed in this course, including the triumph of the Vatican frescoes, the patronage of the popes, the acrimonious battle between Rapheal and Michelangelo, through to Raphael’s final years and the legacy of his life and works that will take us out of the sixteenth century and into early years of the seventeenth century where this survey will end.