Lectures for March-April 2021
Victorian Artists: From Realists to Symbolists
Victorian Artists: From Realists to Symbolists
Wednesday at 11.00
17th March James Tissot: Fashionable London
24th March James McNeill Whistler: An American Abroad
31st March Lawrence Alma-Tadema: At Home in Antiquity
7th April Gustav Klimt: ‘All Art is Erotic’
The lectures will be delivered live by Zoom. They will be uploaded afterwards to my YouTube channel for a limited time and you will be provided a private link to view them again at your leisure.
The lectures last for around an hour. There will be a question-and-answer session at the end.
As the lectures will be delivered live by Zoom, you will be able to ask your questions in person at the end. You can also use the ‘Chat’ function.
How to book
The lectures are priced at £10 a session. You can book each lecture separately. If you book all four lectures the cost will be £30 (one lecture for free!)
Please email Susan Branfield at susanbranfield@waitrose.com.
You can pay by cheque or BACS (details will be supplied). Cheques should be made payable to Anne Anderson.
Once you register and pay, you will be sent an email with your link. Keep it safe!
After the lecture you will be sent a private link so you can access the lecture on my YouTube Channel. Each lecture is accessible for four weeks.
James Tissot: Fashionable London
A French émigré in 1870s London, Tissot captured the nuances of fashionable society. At first glance his paintings appear rather shallow, being all surface and no substance. But there is more to Tissot than just gorgeous frocks. His gloss covers a world of double standards and class snobbery. It took an outsider to reveal the social anxieties of the day.
James McNeill Whistler: An American Abroad
The eponymous enfant terrible, nobody wanted to be on the wrong side of Whistler. His bark was as good as his bite. The champion of ‘Art for Art’s Sake, which scorned the concept of pictorial story-telling or moralizing, Whistler ruffled many feathers, especially those of John Ruskin. When Whistler accused Ruskin of libel, for ‘flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face’, the artist and critic founding themselves arguing in court over the purpose of art in Society.
Lawrence Alma-Tadema: At Home in Antiquity
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Lord Frederic Leighton and G.F. Watts have been classed as ‘Olympian’s. However, while Leighton and Watts opted for high-minded subjects drawn from mythology and ancient history, Alma-Tadema recreated the life of Ancient Greece and Rome. He revelled in archaeological accuracy, painstakingly drawing, and photographing Pompeii and Herculaneum. Yet despite their fidelity, his ‘Victorians in Togas’ are also a reflection of the era.
Gustav Klimt: ‘All art is erotic’
During his lifetime, Gustav Klimt’s paintings were frequently vilified as lewd and even pornographic as he explicitly explored female sexuality. His works are deceivingly beautiful, the surface of the canvas richly ornamented with complex patterns that carry symbolic meaning. They can be esoteric and hard to decipher. As Oscar Wilde warned you go below the surface at you peril. Klimt epitomizes the luxury and decadence of an era destroyed by the First World War.
Anne Anderson 