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Events | Looking at the Overlooked: Ten Masterworks in Focus

Outline: An Art History Course at Marlborough College Summer School 2018 with Arcadia Education from 8th July to 14th July, afternoon sessions

Title: ‘Looking at the Overlooked’ – Ten Masterworks in Focus

Subject: Art Historical Analysis

Content: This course is designed to encourage the gallery-goer to look more closely in order to appreciate more fully the symbolism inherent within many great artworks. In analysing the formal elements of ten key artworks, we will focus on the formal features of composition, pictorial space, light and tone and colour. In addition, we will gain an insight into how materials, methods and techniques have affected the visual appearance of paintings over various epochs. In particular, the signs, symbols and their meanings will be a chief focus. Armed with this foundation, we can then endeavour to decode and unlock the iconography of Art History.

The works selected for in-depth study deliberately transcend several periods in the western tradition of Art History, whilst also representing a range of genres or subject matter.

Masterworks Selected for Analysis:

The Hunt in the Forest by Paolo Uccello

The Annunciation by Fra Angelico

La Primavera by Sandro Botticelli

The School of Athens by Raphael

The Tempest by Giorgione

An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life by Harmen Steenwyck

The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David

The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault

Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère by Edouard Manet

Additional Course Notes

Suggested Reading List

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