Programme Sep – Dec 2013

Capt. Alexander Reid Smith - Odessa C1905THEME:  Portraiture

ILLUSTRATED SEMINARS AND GROUP VISITS

Wednesday 18th September, 10.30 – 12.30pm, Winchester Discovery Centre.

Continuity and tradition in Western Sculpture: Mary Acton
Mary teaches on the extra mural courses at Oxford . She is currently writing a
book on ‘How to look at sculpture’. Her session will cover: The abiding
importance of the study of the human figure and its interpretations from the
Greeks to Antony Gormley. The development of different types of sculpture from
the free standing figure to groups, reliefs and busts.. The significance of scale,
touch and surface in relation to the spectator, from the largest figures to the
smallest. The revival of interest in the classical tradition during the Renaissance
and the changes wrought by artists such as Donatello and Michelangelo, then
later by Bernini in the Baroque period and Rodin in the nineteenth century.

Wednesday 2nd October, VISIT Guided tour of The New Art Centre Roche
Court, East Winterslow, Wiltshire.

Sculpture displayed in a parkland setting, and in an award winning gallery and
Artist’ House, together with paintings and ceramics.

Wednesday 16th October, 10.30 – 12.30pm, Winchester Discovery Centre

Dressed to kill the dragon: images of St George:  Dr Antonia Whitley
We all know who St George is, don’t we? He is the patron saint of England! But
he is also that of Venice and is celebrated in many other countries and cultures.
He is in fact one of over fifty warrior saints. We see his exploits celebrated on war
monuments, pub signs and at the National Football Centre to name but the most
obvious. But where did it all start? And what of the dragon? Sometimes fiery and
fierce and sometimes positively dejected and subdued.
The earliest references to St George, were to a 3C Christian from Cappadocia in
Asia Minor who was martyred for his beliefs. From early times he was venerated
in the Greek Church, his popularity in the West dating from the 13C.
The key to St George lies in the dragon, although he is not the only saint to
vanquish this type of beast. To early Christians a dragon symbolized evil.
Paganism. Then Islam. So George was an example of a Christian knight who
held the line against Islamic military expansionism.
We examine how the image has evolved over time, how it remains an important
symbol, recycled in the light of 20C conflicts and how it is deeply rooted in
political, religious and cultural concepts.

Wednesday 23rdOctober, 10.30 – 12.30pm, Winchester Discovery Centre

An Introduction to Portraiture:  Beth Taylor
This seminar will provide an overview of portrait painting looking at self portraits
and portraits of individuals and groups. We will consider the complexities of
portraiture and the impact of purpose, context and setting on a range of works.
Reference will be made to portraits in early 19th century Vienna as preparation for
our visit to the National Gallery exhibition.

Wednesday 30th October, VISIT to Uppark, nr Petersfield

Uppark has an elegant Georgian interior with a famous Grand Tour collection of
art, gathered by Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh who purchased the house in 1747.
The collection includes two portraits of Fetherstonhaugh by Pompeo Batoni.

Wednesday 13th November, VISIT to Facing the Modern: The Portrait in
Vienna 1900, National Gallery, London.

This major exhibition explores portraiture during the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
1867-1918, showing how imperial and bourgeois traditions of 19th century art
were both sustained and disrupted by avant-garde artists like Gustav Klimt, Egon
Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka
.
OPTIONAL VISIT to National Portrait Gallery in the afternoon
Founded in 1856 to collect portraits of famous British men and women, the gallery
houses over 185,000 portraits from the 16th century to the present day. An
exhibition on Elizabeth I & Her People will be showing at the time of our visit.

Wednesday 20th November, 10.30 – 12.30pm, Winchester Discovery Centre

The 19th century Photographic Portrait:  Beth Taylor
From the mid 19th century there was an increasing demand for portraiture,
influenced by the development of the calotype and the daguerreotype. The latter
was to make portraiture available to a much wider social range. This seminar will
consider the techniques and aims of the portraits taken by the English
photographers, Julia Margaret Cameron and Lady Clementina Hawarden, the
Scottish photographers, David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, and the
French photographers, Gaspar-Felix Tournachon (known as Nadar), and Andre
Apolphe-Eugene Disderi, inventor of the ‘carte de visite’

Wednesday 27th November , 10.30 – 12.30pm, Winchester Discovery Centre

The Grand Tour Portrait:  Tom Duncan
Tom Duncan was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he studied History of
Art and Classical Archaeology. He then studied in the United States and moved to
England in 1984 to complete his PhD. He taught at University level and now
lectures widely to heritage and artistic organisations such as The Art Fund and
NADFAS. He began to lead tours sixteen years ago and founded CICERONI
Travel in 1998. Dr. Duncan’s illustrated talk will include an introduction to the
Grand Tour and insights into the artists and patrons of Grand tour portraits.

Wednesday 11th December, 10.30 – 12.30pm, Winchester Discovery Centre

The language of clothes and jewellery in Renaissance Portraits:  Dr Antonia
Whitley
Is the visual representation of clothing in paintings evidence of what people
actually wore? How were dress, jewellery and general presentation used as an
identification marker of social status or moral rectitude? Were there different rules
for men and women’s clothing? Was it important for artists to be able to convey
not just the right hue but also the exact texture of the fabric being worn? These
are some of the questions to be considered in this session.
In addition to thinking about ‘dress’, I also want to explore some of the issues
surrounding the state of ‘undress’ – namely nudity in paintings of the period. Do
you think, for example, that it was more acceptable to show nudes in mythological
scenes than in domestic bedroom scenes and did clothing allow the erotic and
sacred to be inextricably fused? I look forward to your contributions and to a lively
discussion!
Antonia Whitley