About

Join MonLife Heritage Museums’ exciting new art history course. From van Eyck to van Dyck, Raphael to Reynolds and Pissarro to Picasso, explore how artists’ portrayal of their sitters reflected the art, politics and religion of their era.

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Course Length - 10 weeks of two hour morning lectures (one week off for half term)
Course Dates - Wednesday 2nd October - Wednesday 11th December (no class Wednesday 13th November)
Time - 10:30am - 12:30pm
Medium - Online via Zoom (with recordings available afterwards) Click here to book the in-person version of this course.
Course fee - £110

(Recordings available to members of this course, so that any lectures missed can be caught within 4 weeks, on Zoom)

This series of ten lectures takes us through the history of portraiture. From the time when it became popular in the 15th century, portraiture began to emerge from providing a mere adjunct to religious paintings to become a means to demonstrate power and status. The desire to show individual character and bring sitters to life developed alongside the portrayal of a simple likeness, until we reach the 19th century when style and exploration of new ways of painting meant the sitter’s identity became increasingly subordinate to the process of making art, until we arrive at the challenge of Modernism. 

‘Facing the Past’ is also a chance to look into the eyes of people from other times – were they so different from us?

Image: Detail, Leonardo da Vinci, Lady with an Ermine, National Museum, Krakow.