'Reading' Great Paintings
Event Details
Join the London Literary Salon at the National Gallery to view masterpieces by Titian, Rembrandt, Turner and Monet and consider how we ‘read’ paintings.
Led by Sean Forester, a classically trained painter and literary discussion leader, the visit has been designed to encourage consideration of form and content in the artworks. How are drawing, colour, composition and brushwork used by the artist? What do we feel when we look at a particular picture and why? What ideas are visually expressed?
The study will be based on shared observation and enquiry. We will spend approximately two hours viewing paintings in the gallery, followed by an optional (but recommended) discussion over informal late lunch in a nearby cafe.
The paintings we will view range from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century and include the work of both male and female artists:
- Tiziano Vecelli (known as Titian), Bacchus and Ariadne and The Death of Actaeon
- Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait
- Rembrandt van Rijn, A Woman Bathing and An Elderly Man as Saint Paul
- Joseph Mallord William Turner, Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway and The Fighting Temeraire
- Claude Monet, Water-Lilies at Setting Sun, Water Lilies and Snow Scene at Argenteuil
- Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Self Portrait in a Straw Hat
- Rosalie (Rosa) Bonheur, The Horse Fair
STUDY DETAILS:
REVISED DATE!
- Single-session study, in-person, Thursday 20 April 2023, 12.00-3.00 pm
- Facilitated by Sean Forester
- £75.00 for three-hour study
