Art Appreciation
| Leaders | Jenny |
| Meeting Pattern | 2nd Monday of each month at 2.00pm. |
| Venue | Denning Room, Union Street, Wells Not currently meeting face-to-face |
We were meeting on the second Monday of the month at 2.00pm, when we watched DVDs on art history, with a break for refreshment, when we had the opportunity to discuss the DVDs. We will be returning to the Denning Room in Union Street after its refurbishment, once the Covid-19 situation allows us to.
While we have been unable to meet, we have been able to use the Internet for information, watch various videos online, and watch BBC art programmes. For example:
⦁ Museums and art galleries from around the world to visit online: see list on the side panel.
⦁ Google Arts & Cultures Collections
You can look at art galleries' and museums' collections here, with a zoom-in feature to get more detail.
⦁ Wikipedia has many articles on art and artists - just type in the box Search Wikipedia
⦁ YouTube. You can search for whichever artist interests you, in the Search box:
e.g. Monet's techniques
⦁ The Arts Society offered a series of 8 fortnightly online lectures, from 7th April to 4th August:
⦁ Art in Isolation - the expert from Fake or Fortune? invites you into his house to see some of his paintings:
⦁ The Frick Collection, housed in the former residence of Henry Clay Frick on Fifth Avenue, NY, , is currently offering Cocktails with a Curator.
The basic format, introduced since lockdown prevented the museum from opening, features one of the curators mixing a cocktail, and then talking about it and the painting, for about 15 minutes, e.g.
⦁ Vermeer's 'Officer and Laughing Girl'
⦁ Rembrandt's 'Polish Rider'
⦁ Constable's 'The White Horse'
⦁ Turner's 'Harbor of Dieppe'
⦁ The BBC often has Art programmes, usually on BBC4, and these can be viewed on BBC iPlayer, for a limited time:
In the box Search BBC iPlayer, type in Art for a full list.
These are currently available on BBC iPlayer:
⦁ Art of Persia
⦁ African Renaissance: When Art Meets Power
⦁ Whoever Heard of a Black Artist?
⦁ The Romantics and Us
⦁ Augustus and Gwen
⦁ Inside Museums - including Scottish National Gallery
⦁ Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
⦁ Michael Palin's Quest for Artemisia
⦁ The Miracle of Bali
⦁ Scandal and Beardsley
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In the past we have watched one of the Great Courses DVDs called "How to Look at and Understand Great Art". A synopsis of the "tools" the lecturer suggested for looking at works of art is available here on the website, and was circulated to members. Prior to that we looked at various examples of non-western art, and some of the images on this page reflect that.
Also featured are the paintings from a series of DVDs borrowed from the U3A Resources Centre called The Private Life of a Masterpiece: "This award-winning series reveals the full and fascinating stories behind famous works of art, not just how they came to be created, but also how they influenced others and came to have a life of their own in the modern world". We were halfway through this series and so far we have looked at:
⦁ Sandro Botticelli: La Primavera
⦁ Paolo Uccello: The Battle of San Romano
⦁ Leonardo da Vinci: The Last Supper
⦁ Rembrandt van Rijn: The Night Watch
⦁ Johannes Vermeer: The Art of Painting
⦁ Diego Velázquez: The Rokeby Venus
⦁ Francisco Goya: The Third of May 1808
⦁ Eugène Delacroix: Liberty Leading the People
⦁ Katsushika Hokusai: The Great Wave
⦁ Edouard Manet: Le Déjeuner Sur L'Herbe
Currently the group is full, but if you would like to go on the waiting list, you can contact me by clicking on the pigeon icon on this page to send a message.
Jenny
Click on a picture below to see it full-size with more details.
