Week 1: 12-16 July 2010

Course 4: Dr Susie Nash and Clare Richardson

Early Netherlandish Painting and Technical Art History

The fee for this course is £485 as the group will be limited to 10 students; this also includes the cost of course materials.

THIS COURSE IS NOW FULL. PLEASE DO LET US KNOW IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE PLACED ON A WAITING LIST.

This course will examine the way early Netherlandish painters made their images, and the way we investigate aspects of that making. It will consider the properties of oil and egg tempera, how panels were made and prepared, how works were designed and underdrawn, and how they were brought to completion in the application of the paint layers. To consider these aspects we shall investigate works of art in the conservation studio of The Courtauld Institute of Art, as well as in the gallery there and in the National Gallery. We shall consider how we can discover various aspects concerning the making of panel paintings by different means from close looking with the naked eye and with magnification, through to paint sampling, x-radiography, and infrared reflectography and by replicating their techniques ourselves. The purpose is not just to understand how Netherlandish painters such as the Master of Flemalle, Jan Van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling and Hugo van der Goes created their works, but also to understand the implications of how we study that creative process, how we understand and accommodate changes over time, and how technical methods can be used by the art historian in the service of investigating meaning, function and audience as well as the physical processes of making a work of art.


Week 3: 26-30 July 2010

NEW COURSE

Course 21: Sarah Hyde and Dr Joanna Selborne

Six Centuries of European Prints: The Making and Meaning of Multiple Images

£445

Some of the most admired images in the history of European art have been prints: Dürer’s woodcuts, Rembrandt’s etchings, Hogarth’s engravings and Toulouse-Lautrec’s lithographs. This course will introduce students to the major printmaking techniques used from the 15th to the early 20th century, and consider some of the issues raised in the study of printmaking history such as the uses of prints, the business of buying and selling prints, deciphering inscriptions, their role as illustration, as well as such contentious issues as the concepts of ‘original’ and ‘reproductive’ prints.  Printmaking has always been a collaborative process, involving a range of specialists from engravers and etchers to artists, printers and publishers. We will look at the changing significance of these roles and the way reproductive prints have been such a vital means of circulating visual information across Europe and through all sections of society in the pre-photographic age. Students will have the chance to study prints in the Courtauld Gallery’s distinguished collection in close detail, as well as visiting the British Museum print room and a printmaking studio. The course will involve hands-on study of printmaking materials and tools, and a discussion of how these techniques affected the appearance, function and circulation of prints.

Week 3: 26-30 July 2010

NEW COURSE

Course 25: Dr Julian Stair

Ideas, Materials and Practice: 20th-century and contemporary British ceramics

£445

This course will provide an overview of British ceramics from the early 20th century to the present day through a series of lectures, gallery talks, a handling session and visits to contemporary artists’ studios. The course will examine the development of ideas from the Arts and Crafts movement to the pioneering studio potters Bernard Leach and William Staite Murray, to the diversity of current practice and the work of Turner Prize winner Grayson Perry.  The course will also illustrate the importance of materials in the expression of ideas through a one-day session in Julian Stair’s London studio. Here he will discuss basic ceramic techniques and procedures, explain firing techniques and demonstrate how different materials such as earthenware, stoneware and porcelain impact on the production of contemporary ceramics.

Week 4: 2-6 August 2010

Course 30: Clare Richardson

Artists’ Materials: Invention and Innovation

The fee for this course is £485 as the group will be limited to 10 students; this also includes the cost of course materials

THIS COURSE IS NOW FULL. PLEASE DO LET US KNOW IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE PLACED ON A WAITING LIST.

This course will consider artists' materials from the medieval to modern periods, exploring the aesthetic consequences of the availability of materials, new inventions, and new methods of preparing and applying materials. All aspects of the painter’s craft will be considered, from pigments and binding media to the canvas or panel support.  In exploring these themes we shall refer to historic documents as well as technical examination of paintings – including x-radiography and pigment analysis. We shall reflect upon the methods and materials used in the Renaissance on a visit to the collections of the National Gallery, London, and compare them to the cornucopia of artistic means provided by the Victorian colourmen on a visit to Cornellisen, established in 1855. Guest lecturer Dr. Maria Kokkori, who specialises in the painters of the Russian avant-garde, will bring the course up to the 20th century, exploring the materials and techniques of modernity.

The course will also offer students the opportunity to explore historic materials in a practical manner, through testing of alchemical methods to prepare pigments, experimenting with gilding techniques, grinding their own paints and comparing the handling properties and painting qualities of different pigments and media.