DFAS

Season 2004 - 2005

Tuesday 5th October 2004

Venice and her Music

Janet Canetty-Clark

In 1520, the Doge of Venice contacted Adrian Willaert to travel from the Low Countries to Venice to become Maestro di Capella at St.Mark’s Basilica in “La Serenissima”. Followed by the two Gabrielis and Claudio Monteverdi, Venice soon became the musical centre of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Antonio Vivaldi triumphed in the 18th century, with the glorious music for the girls of the Pièta. Then came the horrors of 1797, and the handover of power to Napoleon. But Venice rose again from the ashes, with her attraction for creative artists like Turner and Byron, and musicians such as Verdi, Stravinsky and Benjamin Britten.

Tuesday 2nd November 2004

Senses and Sins

Painters of Daily Life in the 17th Century

Jeroen Giltaij

The Chief Curator of Old Master Paintings at the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam.

Jeroen Giltaij will tell us about this exhibit surveying this Dutch specialism in painting which will extend from Oct. 23 to Jan. 9, 2005. It will include the most important specialists in this genre of 17th century Dutch art including Adriaen Brouwer, Jan Steen, Gerard ter Borch, Gerrit Dou, Pieter de Hooch and Johannes Vermeer. Not only the organisation of this exhibit will be discussed but also we will get a glimpse of the bad manners, erotic, wit, and elegance of the 17th century.

Tuesday 7th December 2004

Angels, Cherubs and the Hosts of Heaven

- a lecture for Christmas and all the seasons

Frances Feldman

Throughout the ages artists have been fascinated by angels and represented these heavenly creatures in man’s image. The lecture focuses on their individual characteristics, their specific charges and the importance of hierarchy; all of which are placed in a social and cultural context that spans the centuries. Slides accompanying the lecture will show examples from the 12th to the present centuries.

Tuesday 11th January 2005

Red Vibrations 

Alexandra Drysdale

Colours are radiant energies that affect us positively and negatively, and red is the most forceful of all. It is a very flexible colour, from demonic scarlet to angelic pink, from the wisdom of crimson to the warm exuberance of orange; its range of expression is extreme. It is always active rather than passive, from the speed of a red Ferrari to the soft subtlety of a pink rose. This lecture is a fascinating analysis of the way artists over the centuries have used red in their paintings. Some artists use red for purely aesthetic reasons. For example landscape painters will often use a dab of scarlet on a figure's clothing so that the figure won't get lost amidst all the greens and browns. Other artists use red symbolically as in the many paintings of Christ where He wears red to denote His passion. But generally artists combined the aesthetic, emotional and spiritual effects of colours within one painting.

Tuesday 8th February 2005

How is it Made?

-A Closer Look at Silver

Dr Helen Clifford

Goldsmithing dates back to the 3rd millennia BC, and most silver is made in the same way as it was in medieval times. By understanding the basic processes of making and decorating silver you will be able to ‘unlock’ the silver you see in museums, in country houses and in your own homes. You will become familiar with the goldsmith’s workshop and tools and appreciate both the changes and the continuities in one of the oldest and most revered of our crafts. This lecture will be illustrated by slides of Medieval to Contemporary silver, concentrating on English work.

Tuesday 8th March 2005

Spoils of War

The Displaced Art of World War II

Rev. Donald Easton

Millions of art works were displaced during 1939-45. The Nazi state organised a massive looting operation, confiscating art works from its own museums and citizens and from its occupied territories, including parts of the Soviet Union. At the end of the war the Allies had to sort out the resulting confusion, but had no generally agreed policy. There was a desire to take restitution in kind for what had been lost, and there was unofficial looting. In the West much was eventually returned to its owners, but in the East it was only after the fall of the Iron Curtain that the problematical legacy of 1945 began to be addressed. This lecture examines the aims and methods of Nazi art-collecting, the steps towards restitution taken by the Western Allies in 1945, recent revelations concerning the reparations taken by the USSR, the present international framework, and what progress has been made towards a resolution of the chaotic legacy of the Second World War.

Tuesday 5th April 2005

Cities of Vesuvius

-Art and Everyday life in Ancient Pompeii and Herculaneum

Dr Neil Faulkner

We will use the evidence of town planning, architecture, sculpture, mosaic and fresco, supported by contemporary literature, to reconstruct something of the fabric of everyday life in ancient Pompeii, Herculaneum and other Vesuvian sites. The world of public affairs, business and aristocratic display (what Romans called negotium) will be viewed in contrast with the more private world of relaxation in elite town houses and villas (otium).

Tuesday 10th May 2005

Whistler 

Douglas Skeggs

International lecturer, author, artist and TV presenter of various programmes - notably the Omnibus programme on Whistler.

Douglas Skeggs will talk to us about the "demon king" of art whose paintings of the Thames were to put him in court. The lecture explores the paradox of this man whose flamboyant and eccentric way made him both admired and detested in equal measure and yet whose quiet, meditative paintings, in which more is suggested than actually seen, ultimately assured him a place alongside Oscar Wilde as one of the high priests of the Aesthetic Movement. 

Tuesday June 7th, 2005

Women in Men´s Clothing in 17th Century Paintings and the Work of the Netherlands Institute of Art History

Drs. Marijke C. de Kinkelder

The Head of the Old Master Dutch Paintings Department of the RKD.

Ms. Kinkelder will talk to us not only about the work of the Dutch Art Institute, which is one of the most important repositories of art historical knowledge in the world, but also will give us some of her insights and findings from her study of particular 17th century Dutch artists who included what seems to be women dressed in men's clothing in some of their paintings done during a particular period.