Art History Course | The Genres of Art – Hierarchy of Painting
10.30am–1pm
£45 each or book all three for £125
[ Talk )
Buy Tickets >Join us for the opening session of our new art history course, Art and its Genres, led by our curators and special guest Colin Wiggins, artist, writer, and former Special Projects Curator at the National Gallery.
The session will feature two engaging lectures with opportunities for questions and stimulating discussion, plus a coffee break (refreshments provided) in between.
Colin Wiggins will introduce the traditional hierarchy of painting, a system that ranked works of art according to their subject matter. Paintings depicting grand narratives from ancient history or classical mythology were considered the highest form of artistic achievement, prized for their moral, intellectual, and cultural ambition. At the other end of the scale were representations of the everyday and domestic, such as still lifes of food or household objects, which were long regarded as the lowest category of art. Between these extremes sat portraiture, landscape, scenes of everyday life, and animal painting, distinctions that shaped artistic practice well into the nineteenth century. Colin will explore how these categories shaped artistic practice audience expectations, and ideas of value and prestige well into the nineteenth century.
Following this, Dr Melanie Vandenbrouck, Chief Curator at Pallant House Gallery, will explore the work of Caroline Walker to show how she takes inspiration from artists from the past and plays with tradition to reimagine the long-held hierarchy of genres. Melanie will reveal how Walker uses familiar subjects to reflect on social and political aspects of contemporary everyday life, and elevate the ordinary into subjects of lasting artistic significance.
Please bring anything you would like to make notes with and let us know when booking of any special dietary or access requirements.
£45 per session or book all three for the discounted price of £125. Add all three sessions to your basket to receive the discounted price when you check out.
Other sessions in this course are:
Wednesday 11 March, 10.30am–1pm – Landscape
Wednesday 25 March, 10.30am–1pm – Still Life
Melanie Vandenbrouck
Dr Melanie Vandenbrouck is Chief Curator at Pallant House Gallery. Formerly Curator of Sculpture 1900–Now at the V&A and Curator of Art Post-1800 at Royal Museums Greenwich in London, she has led major contemporary art initiatives. Her wide interests include the porosity between artforms and the ways in which art and identity intersect. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, she holds a PhD from the Courtauld Institute and trained at the École du Louvre and Sorbonne University in Paris as well as Sussex University.
Colin Wiggins
Colin Wiggins worked for over 30 years at the National Gallery. He was responsible for the Associate Artist scheme, inviting contemporary artists such as Paula Rego, Peter Blake and Ana Maria Pacheco to become involved in the life of the Gallery and to hold exhibitions of their work there. During his time at the Gallery he also curated exhibitions of work by artists such as Frank Auerbach, Bridget Riley and Lucian Freud.
