Art History during social distancing

We aim to still keep in touch culturally during this protracted period of social distancing, via our set of four Monday evening sessions on Zoom throughout April 2021. This short season of Art History talks given by Nick Nelson, Director of Arcadia Education, aims to provide stimulus and escapism at this demanding time. Hidden messages, concealed myths and religious symbology will form the basis for our four sessions; each devoted to one artwork.

To find out more about the weekly talks, please refer to this Course flyer for all information. See also a Short Course Booklet.

Audio Recording of Bellini’s St. Francis in the Frick Collection: Nick Nelson 17.4.20

Dear all,

Thank you so much to all of you who very kindly both donated and tuned in to hear the talk on Giovanni Bellini’s wonderful painting ‘St. Francis in the Desert’ from the Frick Collection in New York.

For a closer look, do click the link below to view the work from the Frick Collection in New York.

https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/st-francis-in-the-desert/egGQB5gOZujX4g

Talk 2 a week later will move to three celebrated Venetian Altarpieces of the High Renaissance by Bellini, Giorgione and Titian respectively.

Talk 2 (24.04)

Thank you so much for your hugely generous donations for the NHS!

The link, if still required, is:

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/ArcadiaTalks4NHS

If you would like to hear a ‘clean’ audio recording of my talk, then please listen here:

With all good wishes, and stay safe,

Nick Nelson

Director of Arcadia Education

Pre-U Easter Revision Analytical Studies Day – Barnsley House 8.04.20

Please find details of a bespoke Pre-U Art History study day at Barnsley House, Easter 2020 here

Specialising in Pre-U Paper 1 (Analytical Studies) students will be tutored by an experienced Art History teacher and CIE Pre-U Paper 1 examiner in order to revise all 30 case studies across Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Sessions will be divided between a cinema room with digital projection and a conference room for written tasks.

The Romantic Rebellion – A Study Day at Barnsley House

On 17th November 2019, we are running a compelling study day at Barnsley House on the Romantic Rebellion in the Arts.

The day will introduce you to such seminal figures as Goya, Delacroix and Géricault, not to mention the quintessentially English John Constable. To bring the movement to life, we will consider the cultural wave within the arts more broadly, in music, literature and philosophy also.

Please find all details of the study day by clicking on this link: The Romantic Rebellion

Look out for our new Barnsley House course for September!

‘Painting Modern Life: The Impressionist Revolution’

15th September 2019 Day Course at Barnsley House, Glos.

Inspired partly by the recent National Gallery exhibition ‘The Courtauld Impressionists: from Manet to Cézanne,’ this talk focusses on a generation of avant-garde artists who sought to capture modern Parisian life in the second half of the nineteenth century. Spurred on by the advent of the camera and the unique compositions of the Japanese print, Monet and his contemporaries embarked upon capturing ‘a slice of life.’ Following the French capital’s facelift during ‘Haussmannisation’ from 1853 to 1870, an anonymous group of painters, sculptors and engravers exhibited their small and seemingly inchoate canvases in the former studio of photographer Félix Nadar on the Boulevard des Capucines, Paris to a bemused public. The inaugural show of 1874 caused unanimous consternation, yet seven further exhibitions ensued as alternatives to the official annual Salon show in Le Louvre. Impressionist subjects concerned themes drawn from the immediacy of the modern world: city life, café life, middle-class leisure pursuits, the landscape, atmospheric effects of light and weather conditions. Charles Baudelaire had called for painters to depict ‘the heroism of modern life,’ and Manet, Degas and co. duly obliged. Given this new generation of painters eschewed academic conventions, they were subsequently derided by critics and lampooned by hack caricaturists alike; yet their legacy is immense. In fact, is there a school of art so ubiquitously reproduced in multi-media format, adorning the very gallery shops one is drawn to at the end of a blockbuster exhibition of their works? Well, this talk separates your Manets from your Monets and assesses the undisputed pulling power of forces of the past.

Timings for the day: 09:30 Arrival & coffee 10:00 – 11:15 Session 1 11:15 – 11:45 Coffee & biscuits 11:45 – 13:00 Session 2 13:00 – 14:00 Lunch (light lunch is provided) 14:00 – 15:30 Session 3

Cost: £55 per person, to include coffee and biscuits on arrival and lunch

Book Now: Contact Katie on 07720775087

World of Interiors Promo: Serious Pursuits!

Arcadia Education’s forthcoming course on Romanticism in Art is featured in The World of Interiors magazine c/c Condé Nast Publications Ltd. Vogue House, London.

Course Details:

Location: Barnsley House, Barnsley, Cirencester, Glos. GL7 5EE
Date: 19.05.19 | 10:00am – 4:00pm (See timings below)
Cost: £55 to include morning coffee & biscuits, a light lunch and tea plus tutoring for the day (parking available)
Book Now: Contact Katie Nelson on 07720775087

World of Interiors Promo: Serious Pursuits

The Romantic Rebellion in the Arts – A Study Day

In the early nineteenth century, three seminal artists eschewed the prevailing Classical Revival and launched their own Romantic Rebellion. They were, Antoine Jean (Baron) Gros, Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix. This seminal moment represented seismic change in the course of the history of art and a great movement (not style) was launched. Romanticism had its strongest roots in France, England, and Germany; Goya is the only major Spanish Romantic. The Romantic artist focused most commonly on emotion, imagination, irrationality, and man’s relationship to nature. They depicted scenes from the past, the exotic, and the supernatural, and explored dark and terrible subjects. They were also interested in the Sublime (awe-inspired terror before nature). However, with an emphasis on the individual, Romanticism marks a key moment when artists began to express their subjective, emotional response to the world. It can therefore be seen as the beginnings of how we think about modern art today. Set within the context of Enlightenment Philosophy, the Industrial and French Revolutions, this study day explores such heavyweights as John Constable, Joseph Mallord William Turner and Caspar David Friedrich, in addition to those also cited above.

Timings for the day:

09:30 Arrival

10:00 – 11:15 Session 1

11:15 – 11:45 Coffee & biscuits

11:45 – 13:00 Session 2

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch (light lunch is provided)

14:00 – 15:30 Session 3

Contact Rachel Chadwick at Barnsley House for venue-specific enquiries: rachel.chadwick@barnsleyhouse.com

Easter Revision Study Day April 2019

Barnsley House Revision Study Day for Pre-U Paper 1 – Analytical Studies.

This was a great opportunity for CIE Pre-U students to develop greater confidence on Paper 1 Analytical Studies in advance of the paper on 14th May 2019.

We had 10 delegates from Marlborough College, Cheltenham College, Stowe School and Norwich School. Details of the day are outlined below:

18.04.19 All day
Barnsley House near Cirencester
Excellent venue with cinema and board rooms
Lunch and drinks provided
Expert advice and tuition
Revision of 30 case studies
Past paper, mark schemes & exemplars provided

See flyer for further details:

Revision flyer

Food for Thought: An Upcoming Talk on Still Life

Talk Title – ‘Objects of Desire’ Still Life Painting and its Legacy in Modernism
Date – 20th March
Time – 12pm
Venue – The Lansdowne Club, Mayfair, London

Talk Synopsis

This illustrated talk aims to analyse still life from its inception as an independent term in Dutch inventories in the seventeenth century in order to appreciate the painting of inanimate objects as a reflection of society. Still lifes can stand as expressions of patriotic rather than personal pride in a newly independent and prosperous nation. On the other hand, such still lifes have been identified as vanitas pieces; so-called ‘moral compasses’ designed to invite viewers to recognise the flimsiness of earthly life and pleasures. This paradigm provided Modern artists with a platform upon which to build, and responding to Cézanne, the language created by the Cubists saw art as part of everyday life. This idea gave freedom in subsequent movements and their legacies from Dada and Surrealism to Pop, as pioneers of the avant-garde sought new modes of expression to capture the zeitgeist.

Forthcoming course at Barnsley House

Hosted by Arcadia Education for Art History, join us on Sunday 2nd December 2018 for a festive sojourn through a series of evocative winter landscapes in the comfort of our cinema room at Barnsley House. Nick Nelson will endeavour to bring seasonal sacred and secular landscapes to life via an array of slides and short film clips as we celebrate artists of the western tradition from Patinir to Pollock. Decoding the semiotics synonymous with Caspar David Friedrich’s winter landscapes alongside Renaissance masterpieces celebrating the journey of the Magi makes for a fascinating run into the festive season.

Timings for the day:

09:30 Arrival

10:00 – 11:15 Session 1

11:15 – 11:45 Coffee & biscuits

11:45 – 13:00 Session 2

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch (light lunch is provided)

14:00 – 15:30 Session 3

Contact Rachel Chadwick at Barnsley House for venue-specific enquiries: rachel.chadwick@barnsleyhouse.com or Katie Nelson on 07720775087 kate@arcadia.education in order to book a place

Forthcoming Course at Barnsley House, September 2018

Future Study Day at Barnsley House: Sunday 16 September 2018

‘Still Life in Art – Food for Thought’

Location: Barnsley House, Barnsley, Cirencester, Glos. GL7 5EE
Date: 16.09.18 | 10:00am – 4:00pm (See timings below)
Cost: £55 to include morning coffee & biscuits, a light lunch and tea plus tutoring for the day (parking available)
Book Now: Contact Katie Nelson on 07720775087

Timings for the day:

09:30 Arrival

10:00 – 11:15 Session 1

11:15 – 11:45 Coffee & biscuits

11:45 – 13:00 Session 2

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch (light lunch is provided)

14:00 – 15:30 Session 3

Dubbed the ‘Cinderella of subject matter’ still lifes can stand as expressions of patriotic rather than personal pride in a newly independent and prosperous nation such as Holland during the Dutch Golden Age. Due to the increased interest in botany, horticulture and the phenomenon of ‘tulip mania’, still life painting first germinated in the Netherlands during the early 1600s, before fully flowering in the late eighteenth century. On the other hand, such still lifes have been identified as vanitas pieces, so-called ‘moral compasses’ designed to remind the viewer of the ephemeral nature of earthly possessions. The notion of painting inanimate objects changes through the ages as a reflection of society, from the rhopography of the Spanish bodegónes to ‘visions of plenty’ as an exaggeration of wealth in elaborate banquet scenes. Furthermore, Picasso pioneered Cubism as a new visual language for the café culture of the Parisian avant-garde.

To book a place please contact Katie on 07720775097 or katehewer@hotmail,com