History: Art History in 100 Paintings (c.25,000 to 1900)

This course aims to enable you to make sense of art works you might encounter in a gallery.

You will fit 100 paintings- or two-dimensional pieces- into a time line of historical events, places, styles and paradigms.

The course will consist of an overview of art history, global in geographic scope and in time scale, looking at 25 art works.

Then the focus will be narrowed to Europe, initially to the Renaissance. Links, however, will continue to be made to global events and Art. At this point you will look at how reading about Art History helps us to understand an art work.

Using art appreciation skills from the first sessions, you will examine works in a virtual tour of a major gallery that come from another time and place.

You will then look at how the relationships between art and history and the role of the artist in societies connect to the art made as Europe changes politically , socially and economically, until 1900.

The course will enable you to create your own personal ‘Gallery of 100 paintings’.