Annunciation to Last Judgement: Themes and Variations in Christian Art

Interesting online course from the London Art History Society summer school on how Western art has represented the major stories of the New Testament.

Unfortunately in the end I could only do two of the six days which covered the period from the circumcision of Christ to the Last Supper. This meant I missed the introductory talk which might have given a bit more shape to the talks. I felt a certain amount of knowledge, which I did have, was assumed and it turned out a couple of the events in this part of the narrative had been covered in that introduction as an example of how the course would run. The summer school had been advertised as six linked but stand-alone sessions.

I liked the form of the days lead by Clare Ford-Wille going through the narrative in sections, outlining which gospels the story appeared in and how it varied between them. This has taught me to look at a picture and think about which gospel it might be following as well as thinking about which aspect of a story they are showing.

I also liked the variety of images she used. Of course there were the classic images from Giotto, Duccio, Fra Angelico etc but she also looked at how post reformation artists approached the subjects and, in some instances, picking 19th century examples.


Day 3

Day 4

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