History painting from the Renaissance to today
Art history weekend
11 May 2024 10am - 5pm12 May 2024 10am - 5pm
Wolfson British Academy Room | Burlington Gardens
£420. Includes light refreshments and a wine reception at the end of day one.
Friends of the RA book first
Angelica Kauffman
Trace the changing nature of history painting from the Italian Renaissance to the contemporary in this weekend short course.
We encounter history paintings in different forms throughout art history, whether it’s Jacques-Louis David’s depictions of Napoleon in battle or Artemisia Gentileschi’s biblical scenes. From the Italian Renaissance right up until the end of the 19th century, history painting has fused together the classical and the contemporary, using literary, historical or religious stories to create allegories for modern life.
History painting was once seen as the noblest and most epic of art forms. When the Royal Academy was founded in 1768, history painting was the pinnacle of artistic achievement, considered more important than portraiture, landscape painting and still life.
This course will dive into the history of history painting itself. As the RA displays a number of history paintings by founding member Angelica Kauffman in the exhibition Angelica Kauffman, we will explore the different ways artists have used this genre to express themselves.
Over the weekend participants will learn from a range of experts, including art historians to curators, and are encouraged to engage in discussion and debate. From Angelica Kauffman’s subtle shifting of the focus in her paintings to foreground female characters to the ways in which history painting was used in the 19th century to enhance nationalist ideas and document colonialism and empire, we will discover the genre’s apparent rise and fall – and uncover how contemporary artists are playing with the style today.
If the course is sold out, please contact public.programmes@royalacademy.org.uk to join our waiting list.
Minimum age 18. If you have any access requirements that you’d like to discuss, please contact public.programmes@royalacademy.org.uk.
About the speakers
Dr. Katherine Gazzard is Curator of Art (Post-1800) at Royal Museums Greenwich. Through her research and curatorial work, she explores the interconnections between British art and the maritime world. She has previously taught art history and museum and gallery studies at the University of East Anglia, where she obtained her PhD in 2019. Her thesis explored the representation of naval officers in eighteenth-century British portraiture. She is the author of The Art of Naval Portraiture, published in March 2024.
Rebecca Lyons is the Director of Collections & Learning at the Royal Academy. Previously she was Director of the Attingham Trust’s prestigious Royal Collection Studies based at Windsor Castle and Curator for the National Trust. Prior to this she was Director of the Fine & Decorative Art MLitt and MA programmes at Christie’s Education/University of Glasgow. Her most recent publications focus on art and monarchy, both collecting and display.
Dr Rachel Sanders received her PhD in History of Art from University College, London in 2011. She has taught History of Art and Design History at a number of institutions including the City Literary Institute, London, and Oxford Brookes University. She has published articles and essays on her research into early twentieth-century American political paintings and cartoons including ‘John Sloan’s Paintings of Working-Class Men’ in Kunst und Politik. (Realism in Modern British and American Art), 2017. She is currently researching New Masses magazine.
Annette Wickham is Curator of Works on Paper for the Royal Academy Collection and co-curator of the current Angelica Kauffman exhibition. She has curated and contributed to numerous displays and exhibitions at the Academy including Daniel Maclise: The Waterloo Cartoon and Constable, Gainsborough and Turner and the Making of Landscape. Annette has published on aspects of the Royal Academy’s history, its Collections and its Schools. She studied History of Art at Manchester University and the Courtauld Institute and was previously an Assistant Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum.