Course 18 – Summer School on campus
Monday 7 – Friday 11 July 2025
Dr Lois Oliver
£645
Course description
In a cartoon published in 1855, Honoré Daumier imagined a battle between two rival aesthetic schools in France: ‘Idealism’ appears as an ageing neoclassical nude, wearing an antique helmet, with his palette as a shield, heroically raising his mahlstick as a spear, to defend himself against ‘Realism’, a scruffy figure in rustic clogs, brandishing a small square palette and clumsy paintbrush. The image perfectly encapsulates the artistic and political differences between these two entrenched aesthetic positions, but the real joke is that neither of these veteran combatants is as vigorous as he used to be: both would be vulnerable to a new avant-garde challenger. The French art world witnessed a series of battles as traditionalists grappled with the successive challenges presented by Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and Symbolism.
This course explores the reasons behind the profound innovations in subject matter and technique that characterised the age, and the obstacles faced by avant-garde artists in getting their work exhibited and accepted. We shall explore the work of Ingres, Delacroix, Delaroche, Courbet, Millet, Rousseau, Manet, Renoir, Degas, Cassatt, Morisot, Seurat, Cézanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh.
Lecturer's biography
Dr Lois Oliver is Professor in History of Art at the University of Notre Dame in London, Lecturer at Boston University London, and a Visiting Lecturer at The Courtauld. She has worked as a Curator at the V&A, the National Gallery, and the Royal Academy. Her recent exhibitions include ‘Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism’ at Dulwich Picture Gallery, the first major UK exhibition of Morisot’s work since 1950, and ‘Jock McFadyen: Tourist without a Guidebook’ for the Royal Academy. She is currently working on a new exhibition project ‘Edouard Manet & Music’ for the Royal Academy. Lois studied English Literature at Cambridge University, and History of Art at The Courtauld, completing an MA in Venetian Renaissance Art and writing her PhD thesis on The Image of the Artist, Paris 1815-1855.