Although Paris remained the centre of the art world at the beginning of the 20th Century, in the United States, art was progressing at a frantic pace, often independent of developments elsewhere. The gritty realism of the Ashcan School developed in New York at a time when that city was undergoing significant social changes. Two World Wars brought vast numbers of European émigrés to the country, bringing with them trends which influenced their American peers. Abstract Expressionism, credited entirely to the United States shifted the focus away from Europe; America now dominated trends. Pop Art was a perfect reflection of consumer-driven Post-War America. Political change brought about by the Civil Rights and Feminist Movements, broadened the scope of topics an artist might address, an attitude which continues to the present day.  

Over the course of the 1800s, Britain underwent such significant social changes that by the close of the century, both the country’s cultural and physical landscape were almost unrecognisable. The Royal Academy remained the key institution for the training of artists and the subsequent display of their works. The century began with John Constable and JMW Turner dominating British art and celebrating the beauty and drama of the English countryside and coastline. However as time progressed, rebellious groups such as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood challenged the conventions of image-making, both in terms of concept and technique. This was also the era of towering Victorian Academic artists including Lord Leighton. Revivals in the Gothic style affected not just architecture but also sculpture and key figures such as John Ruskin and William Morris encouraged a total rejection of industrial mass-production. The Arts & Crafts Movement was one aspect of this attitude. 

A new century brought with it aspects of the traditionalism of the previous era, with some artists continuing the themes of the Pre-Raphaelites. However, key factors, including the significant number of women artists studying at the Slade and Roger Fry’s organisation of a Post-Impressionist exhibition in London, contributed to the development of modernism. Two World Wars devastated a generation of young men and artists both at home and at the Front responded with both horror and sympathy to what they witnessed. Pop Art celebrated the optimism of post-War Britain in the Swinging Sixties. This confident attitude continued during the ‘Cool Britannia’ of the 1990s with the Young British Artists (YBAS). The artists who dominated this latter movement became household names, their work and attitude scandalised and fascinated in equal measure. 

The early 20th Century witnessed seismic changes in art; both in terms of subject matter and the manner in which artists worked. Course 1 investigates the techniques and influences of radical practitioners including Henri Matisse and the Fauves, who took to the extreme the achievements of painters in the second half of the previous century. Other movements, including Cubism, responded to scientific and technological advancements such as the rise of photography, reacting against the realism this process could achieve. Further developments included the influence of non-Western art on European artists such as the German Expressionists. This 'primitivism' brought to painting and sculpture a new vitality not previously witnessed in art history. Key styles up to the outbreak of WW1 are examined.

This era was marked by political upheavals including two World Wars. Course 2 will look at how artists responded to such catastrophes. Subjects not visible to the naked eye, such as the human psyche were explored in very different ways in both Abstraction and Surrealism. Dadaism, a protest against society and the futilities of war, gave us some of the most radical works in the history of art. Artists such as Picasso, who had spent the first decade of the Twentieth Century upending the conventions of art, would abandon such aims and instead call for a ‘return to order’, celebrating classical art. We will look in-depth at the key figures and styles which dominated European art in the first half of the 20th Century and consider how their efforts would ultimately transform art on a global level.

The works of these individuals, often coinciding with tumultuous periods in history, are frequently considered the benchmark by which many of their peers have been measured. Integral to the development of new styles, or inspiring later generations of artists, the five examples chosen here have transcended the environs of the art gallery to become household names. All are synonymous with the concept of a ‘great’ artist, though in reality some struggled for recognition in their own lifetime while others achieved fame quickly and attained ‘legendary’ status. The periods in which they worked, from the second half of the 19th century to the present day, were crucial to their artistic development and we will examine this aspect alongside the techniques, subjects and life experiences which shaped their work and processes. Tracking their careers in chronological order, key achievements and canonical works by each will form the basis of this course. 

France, by the 1800s was seen by many as the main centre for developments in the avant-garde art of the time. Walter Benjamin described Paris as 'the capital of the 19th Century', home to some of the most progressive artistic minds in history and a city determined to be at the forefront of artistic expression. As the Capital evolved politically, socially and culturally, its artists responded either enthusiastically or with reservation to these new changes. From the Napoleonic era to the Haussmanisation of Paris during the Second Empire and the rise of the bourgeoisie; artists including Édouard Manet were confronted with new sights and attitudes which became subjects for their work. Set against this progression was the Paris Salon, a bastion of academic traditions and at odds with radical artists. This course looks at key movements from Romanticism to Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and Symbolism.

Investigate the working processes of sculptors from pivotal moments in art history as they honed their skills across a variety of media. Beginning with marble sculptures from Ancient Greece, we will journey to Renaissance Germany and examine the tradition for lime wood carving. 19th Century French artists including Edgar Degas and Auguste Rodin challenged conventions with their use of wax, plaster and bronze to present the human figure in radical new ways. In the Modern era, use of the ‘found-object’ became commonplace, a concept which continued to the 1990s with the Young British Artists (YBAS). Contemporary practitioners have used performance, video and installation to address a variety of themes, but some are also reliant on those traditional methods of production which have been standard practice for millennia.

The restrictions female practitioners had historically faced in their art training, were by the Twentieth Century becoming more relaxed. Women now rightly took their place alongside their male peers, forming radical new styles and were frequently at the forefront of artistic developments. Both socially and culturally, the role of the female artist changed to such an extent that they were integral to the organisation of avant-garde events and establishing groups. This attitude was not confined to France, indeed other centres were often more progressive towards the inclusion and support of women artists in a male dominated system. We will look at practitioners from Europe and the US, focussing on the first half of the 20th Century, a period of great change for women and see how collectively, these practitioners changed the role of the artist and the course of art history. 

This course traces the developments and trends, which dominated European art, from the dawn of the Renaissance in the early 15th Century, through to the first decades of the 19th Century when Romanticism came to the fore in both art and literature. We will explore the social, cultural and political factors, which contributed to the practices of painters and sculptors from a range of European locations. We will discover how many of these styles were often a reaction against those preceding them. Part 1 traces painting, sculpture and architecture from the Early Italian Renaissance to the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th Century.

In Part 2 we will examine the French Rococo of the 1700s and its spread across other European centres. British artists at this time had a very different approach to the subjects they depicted, influenced by the dramatically changing world around them. Neoclassicism, an antidote to the frivolity of Rococo, coincided with the excavation of major ancient sites including Pompeii and Herculaneum. The course finishes with an exploration of Romanticism, a European-wide movement unlike any style which had gone before it and one which celebrated the natural world but also visionary scenes of imagination, heroism and tragedy.