A woman is knitting in a garden, a cat crouching down beside her. i Frederick Walker, The Old Farm Garden, 1871, The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust) © The Courtauld

Spring Courses on campus

Making Sense of
Christian Iconography

Dr Federico Botana

Monday 3 – Thursday 6 April 2023
£475

Christian themes dominated much of Western art up to the eighteenth century and beyond. This course introduces you to these themes and their historical contexts, and teaches you to recognise and understand the ways in which they were represented in the early Christian, medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods.

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Eve seductively hands Adam the Forbidden Fruit while they stand in a garden surrounded by animals. i Lucas Cranach the Elder, Adam and Eve, 1526, oil on panel, The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust) © The Courtauld

An Introduction to Art History

Dr Anne Puetz and Clare Richardson

Monday 17 – Thursday 20 April 2023
£475

Led by an art historian and a conservator, this course familiarises students with the essentials of art history: periodisation and style, terminology, media and materials, critical methodology, and insights into curatorship and conservation.

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A painting academy in which students are drawing, measuring, attending a dissection and studying artworks. i Pierfrancesco Alberti, an Academy of Painters, 1600–1638, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Image: metmuseum.org

“The Root of Everything”:

Drawing in Europe from the Renaissance to the Modern Period

Media, Materials, and Methods – Case Studies in Context

Dr Rachel Sloan, Dr Anita Sganzerla and Kate Edmondson

Monday 17 – Thursday 20 April 2023
N.B. This course will take place at Somerset House. All other on campus courses will be at Vernon Square.
£475

An in-depth exploration of the media, supports and functions of drawings, and of the practice and theory of drawing – ‘father of all our arts’ in Vasari’s view, and ‘the root of everything’ in Van Gogh’s. This course is based on The Courtauld’s extensive collection of works on paper and combines classroom sessions, detailed object-study in the prints and drawings room, and a hands-on demonstration of media and materials by our paper conservator.

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Drawing of the head of a girl in profile. i Parmigianino, Head of a Girl, 1521-24, pen and ink (dark brown), watercolour (grey) on paper, The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust) © The Courtauld

Making Sense of Abstraction: Roots, Context and Meaning

Dr Emily Christensen

Tuesday 9 – Thursday 11 May 2023
£360

In spite of its perceived complexity and elitism, abstraction became one of the most dominant expressions of modern art.  Ranging across early European manifestations in the work of artists like Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian, to later permutations by American Abstract Expressionists and artists like Ibrahim El-Salahi, this course explores the nature, origins, meanings and reception of this fascinating mode of visual expression.

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Many different, colourful abstract shapes floating against a black and white background. i Wassily Kandinsky, Roter Fleck II, 1921, oil on canvas, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau, Munich

Citations