Approaches to Art History

Useful four week online course from the National Gallery introducing four art historical approaches which can be used to ‘read’ paintings.

The four approaches were social history, decolonisation, feminism and queer studies and each week we took a picture from the gallery’s collection and discussed it with one of these approaches in mind. Inevitably to make a point, the discussion sometimes felt a bit one dimensional and we sometimes strayed a long way from the painting in question to look at history of the art historical approach.

I think week one looking at social history was the most natural to my approach. John Fagg, from the University of Birmingham, looked at “Men of the Docks” by George Bellows from 1912. I do like to know about the context of a picture and what it shows about the times it was painted in as well as what the market for the type of work might have been.

Ana Howie, from the University of Cambridge, took the decolonisation theme using “Drunken Silenus Supported by Satyrs” possibly by Anthony Van Dyck from about 1620 and concentrated on a black figure at the far right of the picture. It is an exaggerated caricature with erotic connotations which may mirror contemporary unacceptable views. What I took from this week was how images like this came about and how they may have fed into later prejudices.

Feminism was tackled by Amy Mechowski, a freelance art historian, using “Susanna at her Bath” by Francesco Hayez from 1850. As well as discussing the male gaze and the place of female nudes in art she also discussed how the work may also have reflected ideas of Italian unification.

The final week looked at queering art history with Francesco Ventrella, from the University of Sussex, using “Marriage A-La-Mode: 4 The Toilette” by William Hogarth from 1743. I think this is the talk that strayed furthest from the picture and I wondered if it might have been better to pick a picture of St Sebastian from the collection which might have fitted his argument better.

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