Art Appreciation: Painting in the Late Nineteenth Century

This course is an introduction to ways of viewing paintings made in Europe and North America in the period 1860-1900. The course uses a selected number of paintings to provide a basis for the beginnings of an appreciation and understanding of some of the seminal ideas in aesthetics and philosophy of the period. The course will attend to direct visual experience of reproduction of the works. The selection will encourage a focus on paintings with specific attentions from the urban sitting room to the outdoors, from portraits and scenes of domestic life to paintings of inner cities and open landscapes.

The course will draw from a selection of works by artists working mainly in France and North America in the period 1860-1900. This will include close-views of work by Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Thomas Eakins, Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Georges Seurat, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne. The course would suit those taking an interest in late nineteenth-century paintings for the first time and also provide the opportunity to close-view selected paintings for those wishing to refine and develop their understanding and viewing skills.

A specific itemised calendar will be provided on day one which could lead you to research some of the works by the artists involved.