Programme Sep – Dec 2011
ILLUSTRATED SEMINARS
Thursday 22nd & 29th September, 10.30 – 12.30pm, Winchester Discovery Centre
Art and Photography: Beth Taylor
Since its invention there has been a complex relationship between art and photography. For nineteenth century artists such as the Pre-Raphaelites, photography increased their range of pictorial images, providing fresh visual ideas and access to details not available to the eye alone. However, by the 1890s photography itself had become an established art form. Photography became an important medium for twentieth century modernist work, such as that of the surrealists, and of post modern and contemporary artists like Victor Burgin and Jeff Wall. These seminars will provide an overview of the development of photographic practice and an opportunity to discuss its changing relationship with art using some key examples of the photographs used (and made) by nineteenth century artists and those made and exhibited by twentieth century artists.
Tuesday 18th October, 10.30 – 12.30pm, Winchester Discovery Centre
The work of a contemporary photographer: Guy Moreton
In this seminar by practitioner and academic Guy Moreton we will consider two of his recent and interrelated projects. W.G.Sebald’s fictive wanderings through the East Anglian landscape in The Rings of Saturn are the starting point for photographs presented in the exhibition Waterlog at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich Castle Museum and recently at the National Gallery of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Croatia. Wanderings and sojourns were also central in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s search for a place to write. For many years he travelled to Skjolden on the west coast of Norway where he lived in a remote house overlooking Lake Eidsvatnet at the inner end of the Sognefjord. The motif of the architectural ruin, and the suggestion of melancholy in landscapes of quiet seriousness are explored in Moreton’s practice.
Wednesday 9th, 16th and 23rd November, 10.30 – 12.30pm, Winchester Discovery Centre
Artistic Patrons at the Three Courts of Northern Italy: Milan, Ferrara and Mantua: Dr. Antonia Whitley
The focus of this course will be on the following three courts: Milan, Mantua and Ferrara and their ruling families. Key members of each of these families chose to become important patrons of art, turning their cities into show-cases for the latest creative ideas. This reputation was achieved through commissioning the leading artists of the day as Lodovico Sforza did with Leonardo da Vinci in Milan, the Gonzagos did with Mantegna in Mantua and Alfonso d’Este with Titian in Ferrara. We will study the motivation of the patrons, the audience for whom the art was created and the style and iconography of the works commissioned. Lively discussion is encouraged and stimulating comparisons will be made between the works of art produced across the various centres studied.
GROUP VISITS
Thursday 15th September 10.30 – 12.00 noon Artists’ Books: Special Collections library, Winchester School of Art
This collection of books made by artists was started in the late 1960’s. It now holds some 800 books in many formats, shapes and sizes. This visit will include a lecture on the Artists’ books Collection followed by an opportunity to look at some examples and ask questions.
Thursday 6th October 11.00am – 3.00pm The Watts Gallery and Chapel, Compton, Guildford.
This gallery houses a collection of works by the Victorian artist, G.F.Watts. The only purpose built gallery in the UK dedicated to a single artist, it has undergone extensive restoration, re-opening in Spring 2011. The nearby Watts Chapel is an Arts and Crafts masterpiece. This visit includes guided tours of both the gallery and the chapel. Lunch is available on site.
Tuesday 11th October 11.00am – 1.00pm Apsley House, 149 Piccadilly, Hyde Park Corner, London.
Apsley House, built 1771-78 to a design by Robert Adam, and home to the first Duke of Wellington, houses one of the finest art collections in London with paintings by Velasquez, Goya, Rubens, Caravaggio and others, granted to Wellington by grateful European kings after his victory over Napoleon at Waterloo. Our visit includes a guided tour.
Thursday 8th December, 11.00am Leonardo da Vinci, Painter at the Court of Milan: National Gallery, London, Sainsbury wing and Sunley room.
Following on from our November seminars, this visit is an opportunity to see one of the most complete displays of Leonardo’s rare surviving paintings and drawings as well as work by his followers. The exhibition focuses on Leonardo as an artist and in particular on the work he produced during his career as court painter to Duke Lodovico Sforza in Milan in the late 1480s and 1490s.