Presented by John Osborne

Date: Wednesday 25th March

Time: 10.00am to 3.00pm

Location: Cawley Hall, Eye Lane, Luston HR6 0DS | ///mango.media.interest

Price: £45 for members, £50 for non-members

This price includes tea/coffee and a professionally catered two course lunch (wine and fruit juice can be purchased separately)

Lecture 1: The Greco-Roman period

There is a profusion of magnificent archaeological sites along the Aegean coast, including Troy, where Alexander the Great celebrated his landfall in Asia in 334 BC. This prehistoric site was famously excavated in the late 19th century by Heinrich Schliemann, who was convinced that here was a historical basis for the legendary Trojan War and Homer's Iliad. Other sites from the Classical period on this coast include Pergamum, where fabulous wealth from Alexander's conquests was spent on beautifying the city; Ephesus, the leading city of Ionia, where there are spectacular and extensive remains, perhaps only second in extent after Pompeii from Roman imperial times; and Halicarnassus, where the local dynast, Mausolus, had a colossal tomb built for himself - which gives us the word 'Mausoleum' for this type of structure.

Sessions 2 and 3: Istanbul

An ideal strategic site for a capital of two consecutive empires, superbly situated on the waters that divide Europe from Asia. Formerly the Greek colony of Byzantium, it was re-founded as Constantinople by the Roman Emperor, Constantine, in 330 AD. It became the hugely busy, prosperous and fascinating city that it is today, Istanbul, full of its 1800 years' history.

As Constantinople, it was the capital of the Eastern Roman / Byzantine Empire for over a thousand years until its capture by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. From this period there remain Justinian's great Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom, Ayia Sophia, and the Church of St Saviour in Chora, the Kariye Cami, each with outstanding mediaeval mosaics, and the Hippodrome. As rulers of the Ottoman Empire, the Sultans inhabited the extraordinary Topkapi Palace for 400 years and built imposing mosques along the city's skyline, including the great complexes of the Sulemaniye and the Blue Mosque of Sultan Ahmet.

Some 20th century history is then touched on: the most obvious moment when British and Turkish interests collided was at Gallipoli, in the First World War, when the chaotic Allied landings were stymied by heroic Turkish defence. Mention will be made of Kemal Ataturk and his extraordinary achievement in creating the modern Turkish state.

John Osborne graduated in Classics at Cambridge University. He taught Classics at Marlborough College for over thirty years, worked for the British Council in Iran and Turkey, and lectures in Islamic Civilisation. He has been a tutor at Marlborough College Summer School, a lecturer at the Department of Continuing Education, University of Bath, and a guide at Salisbury Cathedral. He has also been a lecturer on cruises and the leader of numerous study tours to Bulgaria, Romania, Iran, Turkey and other countries in S.E. Europe and the Mediterranean, as well as performed lecture tours of Australia (twice) and New Zealand.

Exploration Day Booking Form

The cost of the day is £45 per ASTV member and £50 per visitor and includes coffee/tea and a professionally catered two-course lunch. Wine and fruit juice will be available for purchase.

Name(s): ……………………………………………………………………………………

Tel: ……………………………………………..

Email: ……………………………………………………………………………………….

Special Dietary Request: …………………………………………………………………

Emergency Contact

Name: …………………………………………………………………………………………

Tel: …………………………………………….. 

Payment (please delete as appropriate):

I enclose a cheque for £………………, made payable to The Arts Society Teme Valley

OR

I will pay £……………… by BACS: sort code 20-39-64 a/c no: 00837520

Please complete the above and either send by email to wendy.mccracken@manchester.ac.uk OR send with a cheque to :

Wendy McCracken, 21 Dinham, Ludlow SY81EJ .

Please telephone me on 07766015329 if you have any queries or would like more information. Confirmation will be by email unless an s.a.e. is enclosed.

The Society reserves the right to cancel this Exploration Day if circumstances dictate, and may not be able to guarantee a full refund.

Arts Society Teme Valley Exploration Day

The Work Of Angels: The Book Of Kells & Its Contemporaries

Speaker: Tom Duncan

Date: Tuesday 25th November

Time: 10.00am to 3.00pm

Location: Cawley Hall, Eye, Luston HR6 0DS | ///mango.media.interest

Price: £45 for members, £50 for non-members

Application Form: this can either be found as a PDF here, or as text at the bottom of this page that you can copy and paste into either a new Word Document or an email to wendy.mccracken@manchester.ac.uk.

Native Celtic artists in the 700s and 800s A.D. adorned the Four Gospels with illuminated decoration and calligraphy that have earned the Book of Kells the reputation as the most beautiful book in the world.

This Exploration Day, which includes tea/coffee and a professionally catered two course meal, features 3 talks dealing with the development of Irish Christianity, the availability of new technologies, the production of a wide variety of liturgical objects for the new rituals of the recently established Irish church, and the monastic scriptorium.

Itinerary:

10.00am  Arrival and coffee/tea

10.30am Lecture 1

The arrival of Christianity in Ireland brought about a fusion of cultures. In the beginning, the long established tribal settlements of unknown origin were renowned for their carving and metal working traditions, developed to a high level of sophistication during the Bronze Age. The arrival of Celtic influences a few centuries before the birth of Christ was another source of ideas that invigorated Irish art in the centuries dominated by the twin use of new technologies based on iron and a distinct, new form of ornamental embellishment.

11.30am-11.45am Comfort Break

11.45am-12.45pm Lecture 2

 In the fifth and sixth centuries AD, these traditions were pressed into the production of a wide variety of liturgical objects for the new rituals of the recently established Irish church. To the native love of abstract ornament the monks added the human figure, and Christian narrative joined the repertoire of the metal workshop, the stonemason’s yard and finally, the monastic scriptorium. Great works of art such as the Ardagh Chalice and, above all, the Book of Kells were produced in large numbers.

12.45pm-2.00pm Lunch

2.00pm-3.00pm  Lecture 3

The rise of Irish missionary activity and the consequent foundation of Irish monasteries in Scotland, the north of England and throughout Europe saw these particularly Irish styles known as “Insular” art forms spread far and wide. They are considered one of the principal glories of early medieval art.  In their own day, they were considered (to quote the words of one medieval source – Giraldus Cambrensis) to be the work “not of men, but of Angels”.

Tom Duncan was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he studied, successively, Music and then History of Art with Ancient History and Archaeology. He moved to the United States in 1980 to research Late Antiquity and the Early Church. This formative experience brought him to Cambridge, England in 1984 to complete a Ph D on the influence of Early Christian Art on Baroque Painting in Rome. A period as a university lecturer followed, together with many invitations to lecture to organisations such as The Art Fund and The Arts Society.

When not lecturing or travelling, he devotes most of his time to gardening, music and opera, the other great interests in his life.

Exploration Day Booking Form

The cost of the day is £45 per ASTV member and £50 per visitor and includes coffee/tea and a professionally catered two-course lunch. Wine and fruit juice will be available for purchase.

Name(s): ……………………………………………………………………………………

Tel: ……………………………………………..

Email: ……………………………………………………………………………………….

Special Dietary Request: …………………………………………………………………

Emergency Contact

Name: …………………………………………………………………………………………

Tel: ……………………………………………..

Payment (please delete as appropriate):

I enclose a cheque for £………………, made payable to The Arts Society Teme Valley

OR

I will pay £……………… by BACS: sort code 20-39-64   a/c no: 00837520

Please complete the above and either send by email to wendy.mccracken@manchester.ac.uk OR send with a cheque to :

Wendy McCracken, 21 Dinham, Ludlow SY81EJ .

Please telephone me on 07766015329 if you have any queries or would like more information. Confirmation will be by email unless an s.a.e. is enclosed.

The Society reserves the right to cancel this Study Day if circumstances dictate and may not be able to guarantee a full refund.

Application Form can be found at: https://theartssocietytemevalley.org.uk/AboutUs/Documents.aspx

Throughout the history of art particular places at particular times have inspired intense periods of creativity. From the late 19th century, Cornwall became a focus for a number of artists who challenged conventions, beginning with the artists’ colonies at Newlyn and then Lamorna.  In the 20th century, St Ives was home to British modernists such as Bernard Leach, Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, who in turn inspired and were challenged by a younger generation of avant-garde artists that included Peter Lanyon, Roger Hilton, Patrick Heron and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. This study day will look at the work of these artists and others who lived and worked in Cornwall from the 1880s to the 1970s and explore their artistic influences, relationships and legacy.

Lecture 1 - Newlyn and Lamorna

This lecture sets the scene for the arrival of the first generation of artists to Newlyn in the 1880s and looks at the work of artists such as Stanhope Forbes, WalterLangley, Edwin Harris and Henry Scott Tuke. Stanhope Forbes married the Canadian born artist, Elizabeth Armstrong and in 1899 they established the Forbes School of Art which helped to attract a younger generation of artists to Newlyn and the nearby village of Lamorna. These included Harold and Laura Knight, Dod and Ernest  Proctor, Samuel ‘Lamorna’ Birch, Frank Gascoigne Heath and Alfred Munnings.

Lecture 2 - St Ives and the arrival of the Modernists

Artists were also attracted to St Ives from the late 19th century onwards and it may have been the presence of so many artists in the town, which encouraged the self taught artist Alfred Wallis to begin painting in the 1920s, using household paint on scraps of cardboard. His work was championed by modernists such as Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood who admired Wallis’ authenticity. With war on the horizon in the summer of 1939, Nicholson and his second wife, Barbara Hepworth, moved to St Ives, together with Naum Gabo. They challenged the traditionalists and inspiring the next generation of artists in Cornwall.

Lecture 3 - The Triumph of St Ives 1945-1975

This final lecture will chart the rise of St Ives as a centre for modern art after the war and show that it was not only Nicholson, Hepworth and Gabo who achieved international success but other artists such as Peter Lanyon, Patrick Heron, Terry Frost and Wilhemena Barns Graham. This success led to the town becoming a focal point for post-war avant garde art which led the eyes of the modern art world to focus, for a brief period, on St Ives.

Sarah Burles studied History of Art at Cambridge University before doing a master’s degree at University College London. She went on to have a career in museum and gallery education, establishing new services in three different museums before working at the Fitzwilliam Museum for many years.   Sarah is the founder of Cambridge Art Tours, which runs tours and courses in and around East Anglia. She is also a Tour Director for a travel company and has led tours to Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and America. During the coronavirus pandemic, Sarah moved her work online, offering art history courses to audiences all over the world. Sarah became an Arts Society accredited lecturer in 2021 and, since then, has given lectures and run study days for Arts Societies throughout the UK and in Europe. She is delighted to have been invited lecture for the Arts Society in New Zealand in 2024.

Cawley Hall, Eye, Luston, HR6 0DS
10.00 for 10.30

AFRICAN ART : CURIO OR CRAFT

1.      What we know and what we don’t know

The first hour serves as an introduction into the subject of African Art studies and difficulties encountered when trying to learn and understand more about it. The talk introduces the ancient arts of the continent and a fascinating history of misunderstandings of sub-Saharan African cultural production

2.      African masks – an explanation

This vast subject is distilled to offer the basic understanding of the use of masks, which is essential for navigation through social hierarchies and religious practices of many African societies

3.      How to look at African traditional art

First following in Picasso’s and Matisse’s footsteps, the final hour provides clear instruction on how to approach African traditional art as a beginner. It touches on the experiences of the European artists in the early 20th century and the recognisable influence of African art on European modernism . Final conclusion offers the way forward into this wonderful subject.

No previous knowledge is necessary. Curiosity, a touch of introspection and a sense of humour could be useful.

Audience is invited to bring their own sub-Saharan traditional artefacts for show and discussion.

Nirvana Romell: Holds MEd in History of Art and MA in English Language & Literature, with 23 years of lecturing experience on 3 continents. Since arrival in the UK in 2003, she has been working as a freelance lecturer, public programmes consultant and tour director. She has regularly presented art history courses and lectures, as well as trained staff and volunteers, at the Manchester Art Gallery, the Walker Gallery in Liverpool, University of Manchester and other art and learning institutions. 

She also organizes and presents tours of permanent and temporary exhibitions across the UK and Europe, and study tours to the Balkans, Italy, France, Switzerland, Sweden and South Africa.

Study Day Booking Form Wednesday 6th November

The cost of the day is £45 per ASTV member and £50 per guest and includes coffee/tea and a professionally catered two-course lunch. Wine and fruit juice will be available.

Member’s Name(s)…………………………………………………………………………

Tel: ……………………………………………..

Email: ……………………………………………………………………………………….

Name(s) of guest(s)………………………………………………………………………..

 Special dietary request……………………………………….......................................

 I enclose a cheque for £………………  OR    I will pay by BACS: sort code 20-39-64   a/c no: 00837520

 Please complete the above and PAY by BACS or send with a cheque payable to The Arts Society Teme Valley to :

Wendy McCracken, 21 Dinham, Ludlow SY81EJ . Please telephone me on 07766015329 if you have any queries or would like more information. Confirmation will be by email unless a s.a.e. is enclosed. The Society reserves the right to cancel this Study Day if circumstances dictate and may not be able to guarantee a full refund. 

This page form can be copied and pasted into Word

Cawley Hall, Eye, Luston, HR6 0DS
10.00 for 10.30

Content

This day will consist of 3 lectures,  and will explore the links and differences between each theme.

1.    Masters of the North covering  Norway, Denmark & Sweden, considers, amongst other factors, the particular quality of light and darkness and how this impacted their art.

2.  Helsinki : myth, music and art nouveau, the most northerly capital - once playground of Russia and the Baltic states.

3. "From Peasants to Czars: a portrait of Russia in the 19th century

For those unfamiliar with the art of the Northern climes this day will come as a revelation. Prepare to be amazed by the work of the Nordic painters during the 19th century.  From dazzling dazzling snowy landscapes   to moody interiors Brian will showcase how the national identities of Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland were forged in part from a battle against the elements and social deprivation as much as political power and provincialism during the turbulent years of the 19th century.

He will then discuss Helsinki’s stylish architecture that brings to life the mythical characters from Finland's ancient past. Such myths also inspired some of her most famous artists and musicians, not least Sibelius. In this multi-media presentation he will examine how these forces came together in Finland’s quest for nationhood, and helped  turn its capital into a jewel of art nouveau, but with a distinctly Finnish flavour.

In the afternoon  he will create  a pictorial sleigh ride through time and the vast space that was  Russia before the revolution! Through the works of many dazzling Russian and indeed Ukrainian artists he will show us not just how they showcased Russia's enigmatic beauty, but daringly criticised the ruling elite and  the rapidly changing social order.   If you would like an applicatiotion form please click here.  It is also under Documents under Our Society.

Brian Healey: A senior modern languages teacher in an independent grammar school for many years, has also enjoyed a successful parallel career since the 1980s as a professional artist and interior designer. Since 2006 he has been regularlly travelled on a number of prestigious ocean and river cruise lines, either as resident artist, guest lecturer on art .

Imogen Corrigan

After nearly 20 years in the British army, she went to the University of Kent to study Anglo-Saxon & Medieval History and Art, graduating with 1st class honours, followed by an MPhil from the University of Birmingham. She now works as a freelance lecturer across Britain and Europe as well as lecturing on small cruise ships and running study tours and courses on land. She has written Stone on Stone: the Men Who Built the Cathedrals, published 2019.

Content: How to read the signs and symbols within Medieval art, some more easy to detect than others. This lecture considers art of the period c.1100 – c.1500 and guides the audience through where it might be found and the forms it might take as well as what it meant to the Medieval viewer. The day guides the audience through where medieval imagery might be found and the forms it might take as well as what it meant to the viewer in the Middle Ages. It answers some basic questions (e.g. why are fonts usually octagonal, is a hedgehog a good or bad figure in medieval art?), but also considers body language and how to spot saints. We will also look at the symbolism of Mary including her Laudable Conditions and study the Merode Altarpiece as well as two well-known works of art, focussing on the symbolism they contain: St Jerome in his study by Antonello da Messina and the Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck.  In the afternoon we will look into the wonderful and sometimes whacky world of monsters, so many of which litter our churches and manuscripts. Did these images have a purpose? What inspired them?

If you would like to book a place please click on this link for a booking form .

“How sweet the name of genius”…..A day with Edwin Landseer Lutyens (1869-1944).

Lutyens work is found in England Scotland, Ireland, France, Italy, the United States and India. He designed in a variety of modes. His earliest (and some say his best, certainly his most original) flowed from local traditions and intermingled with their environment. His later building played the high game, appropriating the Western classical tradition of the Renaissance and the Baroque. But whether vernacular or classical, his building were marked by his own idiosyncratic manner, often inventive, usually very English and yet entirely at home in Washington, New Delhi or Rome. He was sometimes both irresponsible and witty. His work covered a wide range of building types reflecting his age: a dolls house, a cathedral, war memorials, mansions, cottages, business headquarters, banks, YMCA hostel, an embassy a Methodist chapel.

Lutyens belonged to a generation that produced the American Frank Lloyd Wright ( 1867-1959)and the Scotsman Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928). Their genius is undisputed, Lutyens was more ‘establishment’ and more consistently successful than either. Was he too no less of a genius?

I believe the word “genius “ applies as invigoratingly to hi as it does to Wright and Mackintosh, and the day will investigate this assertion.

The day is in three parts:

• The life and early works
• The High game
• Public man on and International stage

There will be an exploration of the rise, fall and rise again of his reputation and the evidence of his genius( caught most arrestingly in the Cenotaph) This sets him in the context of the Arts and Crafts Revival and follow his career (and consider his engagingly complex personality) from the famous partnership with Gertrude Jekyll to the Viceroys house in New Delhi to the unbuilt Roman Catholic Cathedral in Liverpool.

Venue: Cawley Hall, Luston, Leominster HR6 ODS

Price for 3 lectures, coffee/tea & professionally catered 2 course lunch:  

Member £36 and Vistor £38

Wine and fruit juice will be available for purchase.

Booking Application Form here.

Review of Lutyens Study day

Professor Clyde Binfield gave three thoroughly absorbing and enlightening lectures to a full house on the work of Sir Edwin Landseer (named after the successful Victorian artist) Lutyens in the latest of the Teme Valley Arts Society Study Days (26th April, 2023).
To some, including the late architectural historian Gavin Stamp and biographer Christopher Hussey, Lutyens was the greatest architect to have lived (certainly in the 20th century) and to a degree this can be defended as the concept and profession of architecture was very much a 19th century creation (RIBA founded 1834) with the nomenclature for people like Wren, Hawksmoor and Vanbrugh being surveyors.   Lutyens opened his own office aged twenty, his palmares prodigious. For the establishment - some five hundred and fifty structures: for government (New Delhi; British Embassy, Washington) business (Britannic House, Finsbury Circus; Midland Bank; 27 Poultry [Now the Ned hotel], Birmingham and Manchester branches) and the Imperial War Graves Commission. Also, private clients (numerous opulent country homes for the very wealthy in Surrey and the peripheral London Shires - Father Martin D’Arcy of Campion Hall, Oxford, prior to Lutyens‘ commission, “But, Ned you have the reputation of being most appallingly expensive”). The man worked tirelessly, with great versatility, and was most successful in assimilating, deploying, promoting the vernacular, local materials, the Arts and Crafts (Movement) and the natural environment for many of his creations; take the spectacularly sited granite constructed Castle Drogo, Devon, for example, which issues from a granite outcrop above the Teign gorge simultaneously guarding and genuflecting to the expansive rolling Dartmoor countryside. 

The title of ‘greatest of his time’ can, in my opinion, be further ‘defended’ in that most, if not all, of Lutyens’ edifices are extant and have become listed buildings, surely testimony to a successful and enduring built environment and for all to enjoy. Lutyens rewardingly collaborated with ‘Bumps’, aka Gertrude Jekyll the garden designer and Sir Herbert Baker (New Delhi) but was often accused of taking jobs from other architects.
 Prof. Binfield delivered with much wit and wisdom, imparting quotes, observations and jokes: It was a pleasure to have him speak. Compliments to the chefs and to committee members also for making the day so enjoyable.

Mark B