Click HERE to book online

You may also book in person, with a credit card, at our 19 February lecture,

£40 inc booking fee

About the day

Unsung figures in the history of art, marginalised and poorly documented -women artists of the renaissance have largely been ignored.
These lecture look at the careers and personal lives of the best known, from the miniaturist Leviina Tierlinck, employed at the Tudor court, to the Florentine nun Platilla Nelli the wildly successful portraitists Sofonisba Anguissola and Lavinia Fontana, and finally the racy life of Artemisia Gentileschi, who truly rivalled her male peers in Florence, Naples and Rome.
We also look at the part played by female patrons, from abbesses to widows as well as members of the nobility such as the famous Isabella d'Este, together with her less well known mother and daughter. Their commissions include artworks by such celebrities as Mantegna, Raphael and Correggio.

Lecture 1: Women Artists I

We explore the challenges faced by women seeking to become artists in the 15th-16th centuries, and the types of artwork they produced. Artists discussed include the miniaturist Levina Teerlinc, 'paintrix' at the Tudor court, the Florentine nun Plautilla Nelli, and the portraitist Sofonisba Anguissola, whose fame at the Spanish court raised the profile of women artists.

Lecture 2: Women Artists Il

This session focuses two highly successful female painters, Lavinia Fontana and Artemisia Gentileschi who pushed the boundaries of 'womanly' subject matter and competed seriously with men in the commercial art world.

Lecture 3: Women Patrons

Finally, we look at wealthy and powerful women who commissioned great art and architecture - invariably from men, including Raphael, Mantegna and Correggio. They range from abbesses and wealthy widows, to rulers such as the famous Isabella d'Este and her daughter, Eleonora Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino, and the supremely powerful Habsburg duchess, Margaret of Austria.

Timetable for the day - arrive by 9.45 am in the Jock Coalville Hall, Churchill College 

Lecture One: 10.00 am
Coffee/ tea break: 11.00 to 11.30 am (included in ticket price)

Lecture Two: 11.30 am

Lunch: 12.30 to 1.30 pm (self-funded attendees are welcome to lunch in the college dining room. Identify as TASC at the cash desk for a 10% discount)

Lecture Three: 1.30 pm followed by Q&As

Finish time: 3.00 pm

About the lecturer 

Paula Nuttall is a specialist in Renaissance art, both Italian and northern European, on which she has published widely, notably From Flanders to Florence: the Impact of Netherlandish Painting 1400-1500 (Yale, 2004). Has collaborated on major exhibitions including Jan van Eyck: an Optical Revolution (Ghent, 2020). Former Director of the V&A Medieval and Renaissance Year course, and lecturer at - among others - the Courtauld Institute and the British Institute of Florence.

For further information 

email: cambridge@theartsociety.org

Please note: refunds for Study Day places can only be made (less the booking fee) if someone on the waiting list takes your place.

About the day
When you think of the Italian renaissance, how many female names come to mind? They may have been half of the population, but very few women have made it into history. Did any of them hold a paintbrush?. Compose music? Collect art and antiquities? Rule states? Speak directly to God? What was it like to be born female in what, on the surface looks, like a man’s world?
In these sumptuously illustrated lectures, Sarah Dunant, author of a trilogy of best-selling novels about women’s lives in the renaissance, shares her own journey through art and scholarship, to bring to life many women who lived during this extraordinary period of history. And along the way she celebrates some figures who deserve a much bigger place in our imaginations and our history books.

Lecture 1: Introduction- The Second sex, a rich history of courtesans and nuns  

Lecture 2: A portrait of one great woman - patron, collector, fashion icon and political manipulator, Isabella d’Este.

Session 3: Book Discussion looking at the relationship between history and fiction Sarah’s books to be discussed include: Birth of Venus (women painters/Florence) Sacred Hearts (nuns enclose convents) In the company of the Courtesan (sex workers in Venice ), two books on the Borgias which rehabilitate Lucrezia;; Blood and Beauty and In the Name of the Family. Also her latest book The Marchesa about Isabella d'Este, available in hardback or kindle. 
Sarah’s series of BBC Radio 4 talks on her latest book can be heard on this link https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002f8lz/episodes/player 

Timetable for the day - arrive by 9.45 am in the Club Room, Churchill College
Lecture One : 10.00 am
Coffee/ tea break : 11.00 to 11.30 am (included in ticket price)
Lecture Two : 11.30 am
Lunch : 12.30 to 1.30 pm  (self-funded attendees are welcome to lunch in the college dining room. Identify as TASC at the cash desk for a 10% discount)
Session Three : 1.30 pm followed by time for Q&A & book purchase / signing

Finish time: 300 pm

For further information email : cambridge@theartsociety.org

Please note: refunds for Study Dat places can only be made (less the booking fee) if someone on the waiting list takes your place.

Biography of Sarah Dunant

Novelist, broadcaster and critic. Sarah read history at Cambridge, then worked for many years as a cultural journalist in radio and television on such programmes as Kaleidoscope (BBC Radio 4), The Late Show (BBC 2), and Night Waves/Free thinking (BBC Radio 3).  She has published thirteen novels, taught renaissance studies at Washington University, St Louis and lectured around the world at festivals and conferences. Her last five novels have been set within the Italian Renaissance. In the Name of the Family completes the story of the Borgia family and the remarkable period of Italian history in which they lived. She is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s A POINT OF VIEW and these talks, alongside her series on history for Radio 4, When Greeks Flew Kites are available on podcast or BBC sounds. 

Message from Sarah:

"It struck me that [TAS Cam] might like to know that the subject of the second lecture I will give , the remarkable Isabella d’Este - the first female collector of the Renaissance,  is also the focus of the latest novel which I have just published this month.  Details below.  And to coincide  with publication I am doing a series of  five BBC radio 4 talks which go out next week (11.45 am RADIO June 30th - Friday 4th)  in the book of the week. entitles UNEARTHING THE PAST.

I realise this is short notice but, of course, everyone listens now on BBC sounds and they will be available there under my name and title after broadcast, should anyone be interested in catching them. Here is the link. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002f8lz  "

Click HERE to book online.

 Click HERE For the booking form to pay by Bank Transfer or cheque.

About the Day:

This day looks at the exciting paths taken by abstract art during the middle of the twentieth century. The three lectures look at how abstract art developed between the late 1930s and the 1960s in America, and then “across the pond” in London.  We will consider how it came into being; how it blossomed in New York, and and how it reached further afield during the late 1950s and 1960s and was adapted in various ways by different artists.

Lecture 1 - 1940s New York: State of the Art

What were the conditions that led to the birth of arguably the most famous art movement in the mid 20th - century?  Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Arshile Gorky

Lecture 2  - Breaking the Ice: Jackson Pollock and American Abstract Expressionism.  Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell and Lee Krasner

Lecture 3  - “A Feast for the Eye” : Bridget Riley and the development of Painting in the 1960s. Among other artists discussed are Pauline Boty, only recently rediscovered, who combined elements of abstraction with her own strong, figurative images which like Riley’s, relay the energy of the contemporary scene in London. 

About our Lecturer: 

Anna is a London based lecturer and writer specialising in contemporary art.  She oversaw the development of the subject as the first Master’s Degree at Sotheby’s Institute.  She has also taught at other institutions including the Royal Academy, the Tate and the City Lit, as well as lecturing in cities ranging from New York to Berlin and Sydney to Dubai.  She continues to offer guest lectures on the Sotheby’s Institute MA in Contemporary Art. Anna’s books include Abstract Art and Sculpture Now, both published by Thames & Hudson, and two books on the drawings of Antony Gormley.  She aims to enjoy creating an environment where she can introduce art to audiences in a lively and approachable way to make modern and contemporary art both accessible and fascinating.

Timetable

Arrive before 9.45 am in the Club Room at Churchill College.

Lecture One: 10.00 am

Coffee: 11.00 - 11.30 am

Lecture Two: 11.30 am

Lunch: 12.30 - 1.30 pm. Cost not included in the admission but which is eaten together in the Dining Hall upstairs at Churchill.

 Lecture Three: 1.30 pm - 2.30 pm Followed by time for questions, finishing by 3.00pm

For further information, contact: Carla Bailey, South House, 3 Royse Grove, Nr Royston, SG8 9EP. Email: sid.tascambridge@gmail.com Tel: 07968 261101

About the Day:

The Impressionists were an innovative and radical group of artists whose work took Paris by storm in the 1870s.  They reinvented the subject matter of art and how the world was depicted, using new colours and techniques to create paintings of modern life.  The group included, from the beginning, women artists. 

Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt and Marie Bracquemond all exhibited at the Impressionist exhibitions while Eva Gonzalès, Manet’s muse, was an innovative artist in her own right.  Yet how much do we know about them?  What, and how did they paint? What obstacles and prejudices did they face as women artists?  This study day will explore these questions and many more. 

Lecture 1  - Introduction, Eva Gonzalès and Marie Bracquemond

Lecture 2 - Berthe Morisot

Lecture 3  - Mary Cassatt

About our Lecturer: 

Sarah Burles studied History of Art at Cambridge University before doing a master’s degree at University College London. She went on to have a career in museum and gallery education, establishing new services in three different museums before working at the Fitzwilliam Museum for many years. Sarah is the founder of Cambridge Art Tours, which runs tours and courses in and around East Anglia. She is also aTour Director for a travel company and has led tours to Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and America. Sarah became a an Arts Society accredited lecturer in 2021 and, since then, has given lectures and run study days for Arts Societies throughout the UK and in Europe.

Lecture One

Disaster at Sea Maritime subjects have long fascinated artists in Britain and France, but in the late 18th century painters began exploring the human side of life at sea, inspired in part by the rapid growth of public interest in news stories. Focusing particularly on shipwreck and disaster, artists such as JMW Turner, Theodore Gericault and Eugene Delacroix pushed the boundaries of painting to convey the drama and suffering of shipwreck. We look closely at masterpieces such as The Raft of the Medusa, noting the enduring appeal of such works, and their influence on later artists. 

Lecture Two;

 Migrants and Mariners Starting with Ford Madox Brown's celebrated painting The Last of England, and focusing particularly on Britain, this lecture explores the history of artists' engagement with those who journey by or work at sea. In a wideranging survey, we study scenes of Victorian emigrants departing British ports, follow trans-Atlantic travellers in the roaring Twenties and meet artists who chose to live and work at sea. By turns  moving, humorous and beautiful, the lecture offers a panoramic view of life at sea, and of the sea itself. 

Lecture Three

Seafarers at War During the First World War the British government began employing artists to record their impressions of conflict, but it was during the Second World War that the scheme really took off. As British forces were engaged around the world, artists such as Eric Ravilious, Edward Ardizzone and Anthony Gross travelled with them, creating a remarkable body of work that captures both military action and life aboard ship. We see how the work of these and other artists helped shape opinion at home and abroad, and meet men and women of all ranks - from naval heroes to the men labouring in the chain locker

About our lecturer: having studied history at Pembroke College, Cambridge James Russell is an art historian and curator with a passion for modern British and European art, a subject he approaches with one eye on the wider passage of history. His exhibition Soutine / Kossoff is currently wowing critics and visitors at Hastings Contemporary, where he previously curated Seaside Modern (2021) and Seafaring (2022). For Dulwich Picture Gallery he has so far curated Ravilious (2015) and Edward Bawden (2018), with an exciting new project planned for 2024. James has written books about Ravilious, Edward Bawden, Paul Nash, Peggy Angus, Edward Seago, and contemporary water-colourist David Remfry.

Booking Opens 2 October at 9:00 AM. Click HERE to book your place.

Paper booking forms will be available at our lecture on 12 October or can be printed at home and posted by clicking HERE

Introduction:

Artists have drawn and painted the British landscape for over a thousand years. Yet each generation has framed the view in a different way. Some painters have imagined the landscape poetically while others have tried to express how it actually looked under changeable skies. There have been times for wild, mountainous scenery and times for views of gentle pastures. Today, the effects of the climate crisis are setting new challenges for artists.

This study day – based on research for my book Spirit of Place: Artists, Writers and the British Landscape (Thames & Hudson, 2020) – offers an in-depth look at the long history of landscape art in Britain. We will explore the work of well-known artists such as Gainsborough, Constable and Turner and great watercolourists including Cotman and Cozens. But the day will also introduce less familiar but no less significant areas for landscape art, including theatre designs, tapestries and portrait miniatures.

The day will begin with a search for the origins of Britain’s landscape tradition in maps and illuminated manuscripts. We will then go on to explore developments by pioneers such as Richard Wilson, Paul Sandby and Thomas Gainsborough. The 18th century was an era of exploration and discovery which brought exciting new ways of looking at the landscape: a balloonist looked down from his basket to draw the astonishing views that unfolded beneath; amateur artists travelling to the Lake District and north Wales went equipped with coloured lenses to cast an atmospheric tint over the scenes they sketched; and Gainsborough himself devised an innovative ‘show box’ for viewing his glass-paintings.

A second lecture focuses on the Romantic Movement, and the ways in which John Constable and J. M. W. Turner rethought landscape art. Constable in particular was a pioneer of close observation, the first artist to study clouds with scientific rigour and show how English landscape actually appeared to the eye under bright, showery English skies. Watercolour opened up exciting new expressive possibilities, and watercolourists of the Golden Age such as Thomas Girtin, John Robert Cozens and John Sell Cotman used this translucent medium with great skill to capture fleeting effects of light and weather. The young Samuel Palmer, meanwhile, was turning his eyes inwards to produce some of the most idiosyncratic and visionary of rural scenes.

The final lecture tells the stories of Victorian painters such as John Everett Millais, who painted the background of his early masterpiece Ophelia out of doors to capture every flower and blade of grass in eye-popping colour and detail. We will examine fluid, atmospheric watercolours of the late 19th and early 20th centuries by masters of the medium such as James McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent before considering landscapes of the interwar and wartime years. Official War Artists Paul Nash and Eric Ravilious were both steeped in the tradition of British landscape but brought an entirely modern angle too: Ravilious could paint a Tiger Moth in the manner of Cotman. The lecture will conclude by looking at recent innovations in land art, including contemporary artists’ responses to the climate crisis.

About our Lecturer: Dr Susan Owens, former Curator of Paintings at the V&A, is an independent scholar. She has published widely on aspects of British art and culture. Her book Spirit of Place: Artists, Writers and the British Landscape (Thames & Hudson, 2020) was a Times / Sunday Times Book of the Year and shortlisted for Apollo’s Book of the Year award. Susan’s latest book, Imagining England’s Past: Inspiration, Enchantment, Obsession came out in April 2023 and she is currently completing a book on drawing for Yale University Press.

Click HERE for Booking Form

 Four hundred years ago in July 1623 saw the death of the outstanding English composer William Byrd; prolific and successful, he was a favourite at the court of Queen Elizabeth.  But Byrd led a complicated existence as a devout Catholic in troubled Tudor times, when to infringe strict religious rules ran the risk of imprisonment or even death.  Forced underground, he created some of his most expressive music for fellow Catholics to use in secret worship.  This day traces a chronological path through Byrd’s life and work, explores a cross-section of his greatest music, and reflects on what it means to create superb art in circumstances of great danger.

 Lecture One: We explore Byrd’s early years as a musician in London and Lincoln, examining his music making in the context of the time.  Byrd’s appointment as Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1572 was a prestigious development that placed him at the heart of the court establishment, though not entirely out of danger as a practising Catholic in vehemently Protestant England.

Lecture Two: We examine Byrd’s retreat to Essex where he concentrated on music for the Catholic rite in his maturity.

Lecture Three: For the final session after lunch, we will continue to explore and appreciate the music of one of the most important composers of his time; and we are very pleased to be joined then by choral singers from the Cambridge Early Music Consort and its co-director Matthew Gouldstone.

About Our Lecturer:

Since 2017, Sandy Burnett has been an accredited Arts Society lecturer, his talks aimed at unlocking the worlds of classical music and jazz to general arts-loving audiences. He is one of the UK’s most versatile music commentators, enjoying a career that combines broadcasting, performing and lecturing.  After studying at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and working as music director for the RSC, National Theatre and in London’s West End, Sandy spent a decade as one of the core team of presenters on BBC Radio 3.  Combining engaging scholarship with hands-on expertise, he devises and leads cultural holidays all over the world, is the author of the Idler Guide to Classical Music, is a highly sought-after double bassist on the London jazz scene and was appointed the Academy of Ancient Music’s Hogwood Fellow for the 2018-2019 season.  In the Spring of 2020, he set up an online Listening Club to explore great works of classical music: conceived as a lockdown project, it has built up an enthusiastic and loyal following.

On Sale NOW - Click HERE to be ditrected to the booking form

Working as a housekeeper was one of the most prestigious jobs a 19th and early 20th century woman could want - and also one of the toughest.  A far cry from the Downton Abbey fiction, the real-life housekeeper was up against capricious mistresses, low pay, no job-security and gruelling physical labour.  Until now, her story has never been told.  Delving into secret diaries, unpublished letters and the neglected service archives of our stately homes, Tessa Boase tells the extraordinary stories behind some of Britain’s most prominent households.

Lecture One: ‘A good housekeeper is not easily got at’ - The Victorian Era

 We discover more about this unique position by examining a bundle of letters discovered in the archives of Hatfield House, charting the meticulous hunt for a housekeeper to serve Queen Victoria’s prime minister, Lord Salisbury, in 1890.    Mrs Sarah Wells - mother’s to the writer H.G. Wells - kept a revelatory diary for the fourteen years she toiled below stairs at Uppark. 

Lecture Two: Her Mistresses Scapegoat: When Things Went Badly Wrong

 What were the fault lines of this very particular role?  How was the housekeeper supported in times of crisis?  How important was a good mistress? In this explosive story about cook-housekeeper Ellen Penketh, of Erddig Hall in Wales, we discover how a socially anxious Edwardian mistress, an insufficient income, and a very long leash for servants, created the perfect storm for a scandal in 1907.

Lecture Three: ‘Dangerous and Disorderly’ - The 20th-Century

This period of dramatic change for British domestic servants is embodied by the triumphant figure of housekeeper Hannah Mackenzie.  Hannah’s career in service spanned extremes in fortune and circumstance - from the Edwardian conservative nouveau riche to a country house Great War hospital, to the American super rich of the Roaring Twenties, and onwards to personal freedom.  We finish the day by looking at the life of a contemporary housekeeper, Nicky Garner of Holkham Hall in Norfolk. How has the role changed, and how has the English Country House adapted to the modern world? 

About Our Lecturer:

Tessa Boase has an MA in English Literature from Oxford University, a diploma in Art History from the British Institute of Florence and has enjoyed a long career in journalism for national newspapers and magazines. She is a freelance lecturer for The Arts Society as well as the V&A, English Heritage and the National Trust.  She is the author of two books on social history: The Housekeeper’s Tale - The Women Who Really Ran the Country House, and Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather - Fashion, Fury and Feminism, Women’s Fight for Change. Her interest lies in uncovering stories of invisible women of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, revealing how they drove industry, propped up high society and manipulated politics. She teaches at the University of Sussex as a Fellow for the Royal Literary Fund, and is currently researching a book on ‘London’s Lost Department Stores’.

We are offering this three lecture Day to all of our members  free of charge. There is no need to book in advance. A Zoom link will be sent a few days prior to the SID.

This study day examines the portraits and careers of some of history’s most notorious mistresses and courtesans in order to take a generally light-hearted look at changing attitudes to sexual morality down the ages. It also charts the rather complex and ambiguous attitudes of art and society towards the numerous anonymous working girls at the lower end of the scale. 

Starting in seventeenth-century Britain, the talk takes a look at portraits of some of Charles II’s best-known mistresses before moving into the eighteenth century and the era of Hogarth, whose modern moral subjects dealt with the issue of prostitution in hilarious and fascinating detail. From there the careers of some of the great courtesans of London are examined, illustrated by sumptuous portraits made by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, and other senior painters of the period. 

The nineteenth century section stays in Britain initially, looking at the influence of stolid middle-class attitudes to sex and the Fallen Woman, but the scope of the discussions widens into France, where works by Manet, Degas and Renoir feature.

In the twentieth century, radical new artistic techniques were applied to this age-old subject matter by artists like Picasso, Vlaminck and Sickert in the early part of the century; and it continues to appear right up to the present day.

The talk is very much a social history: carefully placing the works of art in their proper historical context, which reveals many little nuances and meanings in well-known works which might not otherwise be immediately apparent to the modern eye.  It is, of course, also full of scandalous stories and anecdotes.

We will begin promptly with the first lecture at 10.00am so please join Zoom promptly from 9.45am.

10.00am - 11.00am.  Lecture one : Representations in Art from Britain in the 17th and 18th Centuries.

11.00am - 11.15pm.  Coffee break.

11.15am - 12.15pm.  Lecture two : From Britain and France in the 19th Century.

12.15pm - 12.45pm.  Short sandwich break.

12.45pm - 1.45pm.  Lecture three :  20th Century and right up to the present day.

1.45pm - 2.00/2.15pm Q&A.

If you have any further queries about the day email : sid.tascambridge@gmail.com

This day offers us the opportunity to explore together the art and artefacts of an extraordinary century and the context in which they illuminate their times. Six wives, phantom pregnancies and a Virgin Queen – in barely 100 years the upstart Tudor dynasty produced some of the great dramatic characters of British history. It also steered the realm into a modern age and virtually invented propaganda through portraits and palaces which outshone the finest of its European rivals. In an age of intense religious conflict, church commissions were followed by destruction of monasteries and their heritage and, throughout, as monarchs impose their changing allegiances on the people, the arts herald the virtues of their chosen faiths.

10.00am - 1.00pm on Zoom. Admission from 9.45AM

This Special Interest Morning is to be offered to all TAS Cambridge members without charge.  It will be via Zoom. The link will be sent out a few days in advance.

Please note the earlier start time to enable us to have time for two fascinating lectures; one followed by a coffee break before the second, with time for a Q&A after each one.

Cultural Revolution in the Heart of Europe

During the 19th century, when many European countries were still under the control of the Habsburgs in Vienna, art and culture were often the only ways in which the Empire’s constituent crownlands could express national identity.  One hundred years after the end of Habsburg dominance in Central Europe, this lavish day looks at two case studies, Czechia and Hungary through the prism of their capital cities.

Lecture One: The Magic of Prague

Throughout Habsburg history, Prague was beloved of kings and princes.  During the 19th century, however, the Czechs sought to reclaim the city for their own.  Looking back at ancient mythology, they imagined their future by means of art, literature and music. From Romanticism to cubism, the Czechs re-conceived various artistic movements in specifically patriotic ways.  Looking at decorative artist  Alfons Mucha, Otaker Lebeda and the school of Bohemian landscape painters, as well as composers such as Smetana and Dvorak, the opening session of this study day shows how the Czechs created a capital fit for a new independent nation. 

Lecture Two: A Hungarian Metropolis

Budapest was formed in 1873 by the unification of Budapest and Pest, situated on either side of the Danube.  The new capital was the focus of resurgent Hungarian nationalism, which found expression through lavish new buildings, the continent’s first underground railway system and myriad paintings featuring specifically Hungarian subjects and locales.  Meanwhile, in the countryside, composers Bartok and Kodaly began collecting the songs and the dances of their compatriots.  Placing these endeavours in a historical framework, this second lecture explores how Hungarians came to understand their national identity through cultural means. 

Gavin Plumley is a writer and broadcaster, appearing on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and contributing to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes worldwide.  He lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries.  His recent talks include the Royal Opera House, the National Gallery, the National Trust, the National Theatre, the British Museum, the V & A, the Southbank Centre, the Tate and the Neue Galerie, New York, as well as for the Arts Society and the Art Fund.

Now fully booked  

Thursday 12 November 2020 - 1000 on Zoom (Admission from 0945).  Pre-booking via Carla is essential.  Only 30 members can attend to maintain the feel of a SID.

Jacqueline Ansell

"Decoding Dress Fashion and Fantasy in C17th Art"

A glorious morning consisting of two lectures exploring the art of the Seventeenth Century.

‘Fit for a King’: Van Dyck the ‘Ultimate Spin Doctor’? This 45 minute lecture begins at 1000, with participants being admitted by TASC from 0945. It will be followed by a Q&A session with live or pre-submitted questions.

Had Van Dyck not arrived at the Stuart Court the stiff body language of Jacobean portraiture may never have been enlivened by the introduction of Renaissance values, giving rise to the splendours of Baroque. In sumptuous satins and shimmering silks Van Dyck’s male sitters exuded elegance, and the artist was hailed as the first to put ladies dress into a "careless romance".

‘Bring in the Funny Hats’ : Culture and Clothing in the age of Rembrandt and Vermeer.  This second 45 minute lecture begins at 1130, with admission from 1115.  It will also be followed by a Q&A session.

The C17th was a Golden Age for Dutch art. Artists catered to patrons by producing paintings of people in rich and exotic dress. Through investigation of key works by Vermeer and Rembrandt we ask did such artists merely have well-stocked ‘dressing-up’ boxes, or really well-stocked imaginations?

To attend this Special Interest Day, which will be available via Zoom without the normal charge, you should register with Carla Bailey (sid.tascambridge@gmail.com) by 30 October.  A Zoom link will be sent to those who register no later than 24 hours before the lectures.  

Image: Anthony Van Dyck -Self Portrait with a Sunflower 1632-3

This day offers us the opportunity to explore together the art and artefacts of an extraordinary century and the context in which they illuminate their times. Six wives, phantom pregnancies and a Virgin Queen – in barely 100 years the upstart Tudor dynasty produced some of the great dramatic characters of British history. It also steered the realm into a modern age and virtually invented propaganda through portraits and palaces which outshone the finest of its European rivals. In an age of intense religious conflict, church commissions were followed by destruction of monasteries and their heritage and, throughout, as monarchs impose their changing allegiances on the people, the arts herald the virtues of their chosen faiths.

The first lecture explores the early life of William Morris (1834–1896) before he founded his famous decorating firm in 1861. We examine the influences and experiences that helped form the single most influential designer of the 19th century. The second lecture focuses on the most productive period of his life and looks at not just the business man but the man behind the famous floral designs. Finally we consider Morris’s lasting legacy into the 21 st century.

A new study day, on how women have been represented in western art since ancient times. It presents a wide range of images of women, asking what the functions of such pictures were in their own times, and how we might read them today. In the process, many nuances and meanings are revealed, and changing attitudes to women, beauty and morality, are addressed. The theme of visual representation runs alongside a parallel theme which looks at the long history of how women have struggled for political representation, and what that has meant for their roles as subjects, and makers, of art.

Session One:  LOOKING BACK – From Antiquity to Renaissance

Session One examines the development of European artistic conventions, starting with some important images from the ancient world, before moving on to medieval Christian Europe, a period which saw the Biblical figures of Eve and the Virgin Mary profoundly shape attitudes towards women and their representation in art, but which also saw the rise of the more secular cult of courtly love.  From there the discussion moves on to Italian Renaissance portraiture, the rise of classicism and the return of the female nude to art.  The roles and importance of women as patrons of art, and as artists themselves is also introduced in this first session, plus the theme of women as subversives, trying to challenge convention.

Session Two:  LOOKING THE PART – Some Women in British Art c.1550-c.1900

The second talk narrows the focus down to British art, looking at the influence of those European conventions around images of women, and their adaptation to specifically British traditions in art and society.  Various factors are considered, including sumptuary laws, propriety, beauty regimes, and changing attitudes towards eroticism and sexual behaviour.  A wide range of women is covered: from all-powerful monarchs down to the ubiquitous Fallen Women of the Victorian era.  It moves on to pick up on the themes of women as artists and activists by looking at the rise of the Women’s Movement and the implications such things as the Cult of Beauty and the Rational Dress Movement had for the representation of women in art.

Session Three:  WHO ARE YOU LOOKING AT? – Twentieth Century Art and Feminism

The final talk starts by examining some late nineteenth-century images of women to show some of the ways in which the early avant-garde challenged and subverted European traditions in art, and discusses the parallel rise of the cult of Bohemia and what that meant for women trying to succeed as artists. This provides background for a look at the difficulties women had making their voices heard in the 1950s, and moves on to explain the confrontational strategies employed by feminist artists in the 1970s, comparing them with the more nuanced attitudes of more recent feminist art.

This SID will be held in the Bevan Room at Churchill College.

Vikings Study Day - Booking opens on 11 October; forms will be available on the website from the afternoon of 10 October.  

    We will begin by considering the Vikings in general terms and how we know about them: history is usually written by the winners, but not in this instance. What sort of people were they, where did they come from and what was their society like? The first raid on Britain was at Lindisfarne in June 793, although this was by no means the first contact. This shocking event triggered a response from Charlemagne which would shape future raids, and it signalled the start of 22 decades of sporadic warfare.

    The main events of the First and Second Viking Ages will be discussed, not least why they renewed their attacks in the later C10th.

    Vikings are known for their fearsome reputation, but they almost fade into insignificance when compared to their cousins who were mainly from the areas we know as Sweden and Finland today. These Vikings went eastwards and are known as the Rus (from which we get the name: Russia). The first records of them date to 839, after which there are several eye-witness accounts. They were remarkable in their appearance, had bizarre funeral rites and were excessively violent.

    Every year the Rus traded down-rivers to Constantinople where they were all-but corralled and where Byzantine emperors either constrained them, fighting them with Greek Fire, or co-opted them to act as their personal warriors. Their story is also remarkable, not least that of the last great old-school Viking queen, Olga whose myth has been almost inextricably entangled with her history. Perhaps surprisingly, it is in these eastern Vikings that the Russian Orthodox Church has its foundation.

    Lastly, the study day will move into the slightly calmer waters of Viking art, myth and culture. Numerous words in modern English hail from the Viking languages, as do some turns of speech. Their religious beliefs were multi-layered and seem to have been similar across the Viking world, as were their myths and their art. Viking art may be surprisingly delicate to those unfamiliar with it. Naturally artistic styles developed over the centuries and there will only be time to consider it in a general sense, but it is characterised by daintiness and complex design, exquisitely rendered. It impacted on religious art in our churches and manuscripts up to approximately AD1200.

The SID will be in the Bevan Room and will be presented by Imogen Corrigan.  It will start as usual at 9.55.

Please note, due to illness, this SID has been rescheduled.  It will now take place on 3 May.

Oliver Everett's career started in the Diplomatic Service including a posting to India.  He was educated at Cambridge University and undertook post-graduate work at Tufts University and the LSE.  He is Librarian Emeritus at the Royal Library, Windsor Castle.  He leads NADFAS tours to India.

In this Special Interest Day we shall look at India's early history, the construction of the Taj Mahal and then Britian's great contribution to the study of India

We shall begin our day with a talk starting from the Indus Valley civilisation (3000BC to 1500BC) and continues with the Aryan invasion from 1500BC and with the brief but significant invasion by Alexander the Great in 326BC. The Mauryan Empire (320-180BC) was the first full scale indigenous empire in India. Its most powerful Emperor, Ashoka, spread Buddhism over much of the country with his famous columns, rock inscriptions and stupas. The second great Indian Empire, the Guptas (320-480AD), created a sophisticated society with flourishing arts, architecture, sculpture, literature, sciences, economics and administration. Cave and rock temples are described and illustrated, including the remarkable wall paintings at Ajanta and the sculpture at Ellora and Elephanta. Hindu temples developed all over the country from the 5th century AD onwards and became increasingly complex and extraordinary. The Muslim invasion of India at the end of the 12th century introduced new forms of architecture and art. 

After our break for coffee/tea we shall look closely at the magnificent Taj Mahal, built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The lecture traces the origins of its design, its site in Agra, how it was built, the craftsmen, the interiors and its surrounding buildings and gardens.

Finally, after lunch (which is not included)  we look at Britain's historical involvement with India which is sometimes criticised. And there were undeniably dark and culpable episodes. But a number of British individuals were very dedicated to India and made great contributions to the study of its history, languages, religions, archaeology, architecture, topography, sociology, zoology and botany. The talk describes the very successful work in those fields of a series of Britons who are not often given the recognition they deserve. Between Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General, and Lord Curzon, a most prominent Viceroy, there were civil servants, soldiers, judges, doctors, engineers, surveyors and others who immersed themselves in the local culture and revealed a great deal about India's amazing past. 

Opera is an elaborate, even extravagant, art form. It requires the work of composers, librettists, conductors, directors, designers, wardrobe, wig and prop technicians, as well as orchestra, chorus, soloists, stage crew, and an audience in front of which to perform. Simon Rees has been given access to his former company, Welsh National Opera, to take photographs of every step of the production.

Session 1

The first hour will look at the conception of the opera from libretto to musical score, then the work of the director and designers in realising this on the stage. Set and costume designs are fragile works on paper, but some have lasted for centuries, and we will look at these as well as more recent works. Sets models and their presentation are an important part of the production process.

Session 2

Costume designs are fitted to individual singers and made up into wearable costumes that respond to the unusual needs of performers – space to move and breathe being particularly important. Props are made from original designs or from photographs of museum objects, or purchased in junk shops and markets. Sets are built, both as painted flats and as 3-D objects, in the making workshop of the opera company. These are assembled in the rehearsal room, and the process of rehearsing can begin.

Session 3

The first piano-vocal rehearsals take place in rehearsal rooms, and then move to the theatre. We will look at the theatre’s mechanisms for changing scenery, and at the back-stage environment of dressing-rooms. After a week of stage-and-piano rehearsals, the orchestra enters the pit for stage-and-orchestra rehearsals, followed by the dress rehearsal and the first night. This is when audience and critics arrive at the venue, and the production is finally unveiled.

By the end of these three sessions, you will have had a comprehensive opportunity to experience the art of opera, as seen by one of Britain’s most experienced operatic dramaturgs.

Booking for this event opened on Thursday,  5 October.  The booking form is available from the Documents part of the website (Our Society, then Documents) now and you can either book by post or in person at the next lecture.  Booking by post will be suspended from 28 October while I am away.

With the multi-billion pound restoration of the Houses of Parliament in the news, this is a chance for Cambridge DFAS members to discover more about the history, art and architecture of the most famous building in Britain.  This Special Interest Day, led by Dr Caroline Shenton, formerly Director of the Parliamentary Archives, will tell the story of the old and new Palaces of Westminster: from the disastrous fire of 1834, famously captured by Turner and many other artists, through the struggle of Charles Barry to build the iconic Victorian Gothic replacement known the world over, and then finally onto the damage of Word War II and consideration of the present day conservation required.

You can book by post using the flyer (go to About Us and Documents) or in person at the next lecture.  Please note, postal applications MUST be received by 1 March not 3 March as it says on the flyer.

From the Renaissance until the late 19th century, art and science existed as one culture. Artists were scientists and scientists were artists. What did they produce? How did this approach work? What can we learn from them? Drawing on examples from 600 years of art history, including the work of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Hans Holbein, Rembrandt, Joseph Wright of Derby, and William Morris, and also covering modern art movements such as Cubism, this lecture offers a new perspective on how the history of art can illuminate aspects of science. 

Shocking! The Life and times of Elsa Schiaparelli

For more information about this SID at Culford School arranged by the East Anglia Area, please look at the Area Website.

http://nadfaseastanglia.org.uk/AreaEvents/FutureCalendar.aspx

The meticulous realism that Vermeer’s paintings exude appears to offer us insights into life in Holland in the seventeenth century. Yet how true to life are they? In this Special Interest Day we will look at the people depicted in these works and discuss whether Dutch interiors looked like this or whether this apparent realism is really an illusion. Comparisons with genre paintings by Vermeer’s contemporaries such as Jan Steen and Pieter de Hooch will offer interesting comparisons and reveal potential hidden meanings. Further evidence from portraits, maps, dolls’ houses, emblematical prints and proverbs will provide insights into art, society, and aesthetics of the Golden Age.

Sophie Oosterwijk has taught at the universities of St Andrews, Manchester and Leicester. She is a freelance researcher, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and co­editor of the journal Church Monuments, and has published widely. Born in Gouda, she grew up with Dutch art and culture. 

Booking for this SID opens on 3 December;  the booking form and flyer is available to print (go to About Us and Documents) now for members unable to attend the lecture.

This SID is now fully booked but there is a waiting list.  

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French and English art of the later part of the nineteenth century was consumed by the desire to find a redemptive art - an art that would transform mundane reality into something perfectly beautiful -  through the alchemy of paint. This day will be a celebration and an examination of life and work of four very different artists, united in their belief that art, in its making and in its reception, can reveal a glimpse of Paradise Regained.

Degas and the Hat Full of Diamonds: Degas, one of the most consummate artists of all time, was consumed by the need to respect the past and paint the present, he did this by finding his own paradise in the wings of the Paris Opera, the private world of the boudoir and the maison clos., expressing in line and colour the harmony and power of the human body in movement, its weight, heft, humanity:"It is the movement of people and things that distracts and even consoles me if there is still consolation to be had for one so unhappy. If the leaves of the trees did not move, how sad the trees would be and we too".

Monet: The Edenic Vision

Obsessed by the desire to paint his experience of the world as directly as possible, with the force and naivety of Adam, when he first looked out onto Paradise or as Monet himself said, As if he had been born blind and suddenly receive his sight. He painted not what things are, but how they look, modified by light and atmosphere - he began painting the contemporary urban adventure, but soon found his true love water - and he found his paradise at the bottom of his garden. 

‘I am driven ever more frantic by the need to render what I experience,. . . I see that I must work very hard to succeed in rendering in rendering what I am looking for ‘instantaneity,’   especially theenvelope [enveloppe]  the same light that diffuses everywhere, things that come easily and at once, disgust me.’

The Legacy: Murder, Mystery, Mayhem and Paint. 

Whistler left Paris for London, escaping the competition of Degas and the Impressionists - he found his Paradis Artificiels in the music hall, in the chimera of arts for art’s sake and the canals of Venice. Like Monet, he was committed to working from nature and sought to find beauty in contemporary environments,finding, again like Monet, that the polluted air gave to London a magical, poetic and evocative splendour.

Sickert was his pupil, who soon abandoned his master to follow the example of Degas to become one of our most celebrated of English artists. His art often considered to be ‘a painter’s painter’. The well-known crime writer Patricia Cornwell has claimed this much-loved artist was responsible for the murders attributed to the infamous Jack the Ripper. This lecture will set Sickert into his artistic context, celebrate his art and attempt untangle the truth of this claim. Was this much-loved, colourful and enigmatic painter Jack the Ripper? - Come and judge the evidence for yourselves!

Michael will bring to the study day a number of original works of art by Degas, Whistler and others apposite to the subject.

Bibliography

Turner, Monet, Whistler, Tate Gallery, 2005

Degas: anything by Richard Kendall or Richard Thomson

Michael Howard, Whistler: Technique of the Masters, 1999

Michael Howard Monet, André Deutsche and the Musée Marmottan, 2005

Richard Kendall, Monet by Himself, Orbis, 1999

Patricia Cornwell, Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper: Case Closed, 2002

Anna Greuzner and Richard Thomson, Degas, Sickert and Toulouse-Lautrec, Royal Academy, 2004

David Peters Corbett, Walter Sickert, 2001

Osbert Sitwell, editor (1947). A Free House! or the artist as craftsman: Being the writings of Walter Richard Sickert, Macmillan & co., London, 2001

Matthew Sturgis, (2005). Walter Sickert: A Life, 2005

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Please note the new start time for this SID.

Shirley Smith will show why Michelangelo is considered to be one of the greatest artists of the western world. Three sessions , as Sculptor, Painter and Architect will give evidence of his genius. In the first session reliefs, the Pieta and more, including the agonising sculptures of his final years. Next, the paintings include the Last Judgement and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo lived through difficult times, both personal and political and yet he created the Laurentian Library , St. Peter's and numerous buildings in Rome.

Kate Williams lectures, publishes and presents programmes on BBC TV and Radio 4. Her published subjects include Emma Hamilton, Queen Victoria, George III and Princess Charlotte. Josephine Bonaparte is next. The plan for the day is to examine Emma Hamilton and Josephine Bonaparte in their rôles as described in the sub-title Mistresses, muses and collectors.

Sarah Searight is a modern historian and journalist. She has lectured and published extensively on the art history of the Islamic world. She plans to start her Day with the World of Islamic Art and then concentrate on two topics, the Islamic Garden and the Splendour of Yemeni Architecture.

Lois is the Exhibitions Curator at the National Gallery and has worked at Harvard University Art Museums and the V&A. She has written extensively about art and appeared on a number of TV and radio programmes about art.