In the first few classes we will trace the origins of Western art in ancient Greece and Rome and its subsequent evolution through the Middle Ages and up to its great flowering in the Renaissance. Then we will look, in detail, at some of the topics listed (chosen in response to the preferences of the class):

The art of Japan. (The very antithesis of the art of Europe).

The Art of Islam. (We will investigate to what extent there is such a thing).

Jacques Louis David (in art a classicist and, in politics, a radical revolutionary).

James Barry (Cork artist, founder member and professor of the Royal Academy, who tried to marry Classicism and Romanticism).

William Mulready (Ennis born, a leading British/ Irish artist of 1st half of 19th C).

Mary Swanzy and Mainie Jellett, (Irish apostles of modernism).

Salvador Dali (Painter of the sub-conscious).

Marc Chagall (A romantic modernist).

We will investigate the art of the Symbolists, who were anti the Academy and anti the Impressionists. Lectures will focus on helping you make the most of your gallery visits at home and abroad; gallery visit included.

This study of art is, in parallel, also a study of social history, because all art is a product of its time and place.