Programme Jan – Jun 2016

THEME:  Art and Empire

ILLUSTRATED SEMINARS AND GROUP VISITSBaron_Antoine-Jean_Gros-Battle_Pyramids_1810

Wednesday 13 January 2016, 10.30 – 12.30, Winchester Discovery Centre
Imperial Art and Architecture
Illustrated seminar by Beth Taylor

At the height of the Roman Empire, many cities invested in the classical culture of monumental representation. Often derived from Greek examples, and drawing on both Greek and Roman mythology, this art and architecture included representations of civic and military leaders and rulers, of their successful battle campaigns and of the civic virtues of Rome of the Roman way of life. In this seminar, we will consider some key examples of classical Greek and Roman art and how it was to impact on ideas of Empire in 19th century Britain, and on the way in which British imperial monuments were designed.

Wednesday 20 January 2016, Visit to Tate Britain, London
Study day on Artist and Empire

The day will include a lecture in the Clore Centre at the museum, followed by lunch and a visit to the exhibition. Artist and Empire brings together extraordinary and unexpected works to explore how artists from Britain and around the word have responded to the dramas, tragedies and experiences of the Empire.
(Minimum numbers: 20)

Wednesday 10 February 2016, 10.30-12.30, Winchester Discovery Centre
Paris Post-War: Art in Europe after 1945.
Illustrated seminar by Mary Acton

In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War there was considerable ferment in Europe around the art scene, particularly in Paris with the advent of Existentialism and Art Brut. Artists’ reaction to the Nazi Occupation was particularly vivid in France, but the cultural climate in Britain was also interesting, if you consider Francis Bacon and his contemporaries. We will also talk more generally about the disillusionment in the Post-War world and the importance of memory, particularly in Germany.

Wednesday 24 February 2016, Winchester’s Imperial Memorials Visit
Led by Beth Taylor

We will start at Winchester Cathedral with a guided tour of the funerary monuments of those who died in Britain’s imperial wars. We will then move on to the Great Hall to consider the genesis and imagery of Alfred Gilbert’s statue of Queen Victoria. After a lunch break, we will visit The Royal Green Jackets Museum for a guided tour of their painting collection which includes a number of works by Thomas Baines, artist and explorer of colonial territories. Finally, we will visit the Boer War memorial in Jewry Street, one of the few monuments to the horses who died in the South African campaign.

Wednesday 9 March 2016, 10.30 – 3.30, Winchester Discovery Centre  DATE CHANGED TO 11 MAY 2016
Byzantine/Ottoman Cross Currents: Constantinople to Istanbul
Study day led by Jane Angelini

Throughout the medieval centuries the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, towered over other European cities as a symbol of cultural refinement and monumental grandeur. In 1453 the great metropolis fell to the armies of the Ottoman Turks and became the capital of another mighty empire. The Ottoman Turks arose from an entirely different culture with an artistic heritage belonging to the Persian-Iranian tradition. Once established in the great city a symbiosis of cultures occurred between embryonic Ottoman, and the extraordinary splendours belonging to Byzantine Constantinople, with its Graeco-Roman roots.

Wednesday 16 March 2016, 10.30 – 12.30, Winchester Discovery Centre
Elizabeth I and the Imperial Theme
Illustrated seminar by Dr Gill White

In the 1570s the queen’s mathematician, Dr John Dee, put forward a vision that would see the small island of England transformed into the hub of an empire and Elizabeth herself changed into an empress. The proposal was based not only on the recent activities of seafarers such as Drake and Gilbert but also on ancient precedents such as the exploits of King Arthur. The might of imperial Spain should be challenged and who better to lead the way than Gloriana? Elizabethan ideas of empire, discovery, trade and international power were reflected in the visual arts. In this lecture we’ll explore some of these themes in a variety of visual sources but especially in the representations of Elizabeth I, queen, goddess and empress.

Wednesday 13 April 2016, 10.30 – 12.30, Winchester Discovery Centre
The Artists of the East India Company
Illustrated seminar by Professor Geoff Quilley

With the establishment of East India Company territorial power in north-east India after 1765 there was a rapid growth in British settlement in the region, with increasing numbers of civil and military personnel working for the Company and seeing the opportunity to make rapid fortunes on the back of the Company’s expanding trade, and through the exploitation of India’s wealth and resources. Among those seeking to take advantage of the Company’s sudden commercial growth were many artists, who saw the opportunity for patronage and new markets for art in British India. Focusing on artists such as Johan Zoffany, William Hodges, and Thomas and William Daniell, this talk will look at how artists responded to the new and rapidly changing environments of India, and how visual imagery represented the conflicted and frequently violent colonial encounter between British commercial and military power, incorporated in a private trading company, and the India of the Mughal empire.

19 – 24 April 2016 WAHG Visit to Madrid and Seville
Details of this visit have been circulated separately.
Wednesday 27 April 2016, 10.30 – 12.30, Winchester Discovery Centre
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: The Golden Age of Mexican Painting
Illustrated seminar by Chloe Sayer

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) and Diego Rivera (1886-1957) have iconic status in Mexico. The Mexican Revolution of 1910 swept away the old régime and banished uropean influence in the arts. Kahlo and Rivera, in their different ways, helped to shape the cultural identity of twentieth-century Mexico. Together they made Mexico a magnet for the rest of the world.
The Mexican mural movement, born during the 1920s, was destined to produce some of the greatest public art of the last century. Diego Rivera’s panoramic images adorn the walls of public buildings, combining social criticism with a faith in human progress. Inspired by early Italian fresco painting, as well as by Aztec and Maya imagery, his intricate visual narratives incorporate allegory and symbolism.  Compared with the monumental scale of Rivera’s work, Kahlo’s work is small in format. Arguably Mexico’s most original painter, she made herself the principal theme of her art. Her paintings reflect her experiences, dreams, hopes and fears.

Wednesday 18 May 2016, 10.30 -12.30, Winchester Discovery Centre
Representations of Nepal in the Nineteenth Century
Illustrated seminar by Diana Wooldridge

Henry Ambrose Oldfield (1822-71) was a British Army Medical Officer, posted to Kathmandu as Surgeon to the British Residency in Nepal in 1850. He was an amateur watercolourist, with a deep interest in art and antiquities encouraged by his brother Edmund, a British Museum Keeper and friend of John Ruskin. He produced over 200 hundred drawings and watercolour paintings during his time in Nepal, which are now held by the British Library and the Royal Geographical Society.  At the same time he wrote detailed accounts of the geography, history, religion and architecture of the country, later published as ‘Sketches from Nepal” in 1880. This talk will explore the significance of Oldfield’s paintings in the cultural history of Nepal, examining their place in the context of British colonial culture, and exploring the• inter-action between British and Nepalese art in the mid-nineteenth century.
Please note: the WAHG AGM will be held at 12.45pm on 18 May 2016, following this seminar. Refreshments will be available.

Wednesday 15 June 2016, 10.30 – 12.30, Winchester Discovery Centre
Interiors of Empire and Tropical Modern Interiors:
Domestic space and the built environment in South Asia, c. 1830 to 1980
Illustrated seminar by Dr Robin Jones

This seminar will address the development and use of the colonial bungalow and the tropical modern house in India and Sri Lanka. During the 19th century, the colonial bungalow in South Asia evolved as a hybrid structure that combined local building practices and uses of space with European notions of dwelling. Later, the development of a ‘tropical modern’ form of architecture in India and Sri Lanka after independence in 1948 referenced aspects of vernacular, pre-colonial dwellings and materials, the colonial bungalow, but most significantly Western modernist forms and idioms. The first part of the seminar will discuss how Europeans lived in tropical South Asia during the colonial period. The second part will explore the development of architecture within the independent nation of Sri Lanka after 1948, focusing on the work of Geoffrey Bawa.

Thursday 16 June 2016, Visit to Buscot Park and OnForm sculpture
exhibition

Travelling by coach, in the morning we will visit Buscot Park, a late eighteenth century Neo-classical house with an Italianate water garden designed by Harold Peto, which is home to the Faringdon art collection. This includes paintings by Rembrandt, Reynolds, Rubens, Van Dyck and Murillo. British art is well represented with pre-Raphaelite works by Burne-Jones and Rossetti, and with twentieth century works by Sutherland and Ravilious.
We then make the short journey to Asthall Manor in the Windrush Valley, a house dating from the seventeenth century set in gardens designed by I. & J. Bannerman in 1998. We will take a lunch break before exploring the gardens, the ballroom and the nearby church which provide the settings for the bi-annual OnForm sculpture exhibition. In 2016 there will be over 200 works in stone on show by 40 sculptors from the UK, Norway, Switzerland, Italy and the Netherlands.
(Maximum numbers: 25)