Stories of art Module 3: Baroque and the Dutch golden age 1600-1700

The fourth session of this six week course at the National Gallery focusing on the art of the 17th century.

This week looked at Poussin and Claude with a lecture by the course leader, Lucrezia Walker, who discussed how although they were French they were considered to be Roman artists and how they almost became the picture postcards of the Grand Tour. I’d never really looked at these artists properly and found this talk really useful as an introduction.

The second lecture was by Susanne Avery from the National Gallery talking about why Claude is so popular in Britain and why there are so many Claude’s in British collections. It was fascinating to hear more about how the National Gallery collection was amassed in the early days and how the pictures then have affected national taste.

 

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