Europe is at a turning point in its history. Questions about its unity and diversity are more relevant today than ever. This series of talks will address the concept of Europe through a number of its most characteristic and idiosyncratic cities. It will discuss the evolution of their ground plans as well as the stories

The last 50 years have produced some of the most exciting and powerful music, painting and sculpture in history, but to many people it remains an undiscovered world. This course aims to introduce participants to some of this era’s major composers including Arvo Pärt, James MacMillan, Brett Dean, Sofia Gubaidulina, Jörg Widmann and John Adams,

Money may make the world go round, but it is also crucial to the development of the arts. The Renaissance across Europe was financed by Church, commerce and conquest, and fuelled not only by connoisseurship but by the need for calculated propaganda. This course examines the diversity of a formative age and asks how and

A look at some great strivers of the late 18th and l9th centuries and their relationship with fame. Mary Robinson enjoys it; Fanny Mendelssohn hankers after it; Benjamin Robert Haydon perishes for lack of it; Edwin Landseer basks in it and overdoes it; Florence Nightingale utterly rejects it.

Most of London’s housing stock now dates from no earlier than the beginning of the eighteenth century. The forms that its dwellings have taken since the time of the Great Fire of London have changed dramatically in response to changing needs, an expanding population, forces of development and legislation.

The concept of the solitary male genius has been a dominant theme of Western art histories. Wives, mistresses, partners and collaborators have often been chased into the shadows, even if they too were practicing artists in their own right.  We will explore the complexities of some of these notable artistic relationships, with an emphasis on

We will explore the fascinating and exacting world of C19th British horticulture and its development as a respectable, skilled Victorian trade which matured into a competitive gardening community with the high standards so typical of the glorious Victorian age.  We will learn of amateur and professional gardeners who rolled up their sleeves to progress gardening innovation

Ever since its inception two-hundred years ago, the National Gallery has been open to the public free of charge. Starting with a small collection, it has grown to just over 2,500 paintings including some of the greatest masterpieces in Western European art.  Each week, this gallery-based course will tell the story of the National Gallery

Over the centuries, composers and painters have often drawn inspiration from the same subject matter – a crow on a dead branch, a lonely traveller, a man contemplating the moon, are common themes, for example, in both the songs of Franz Schubert and the canvases of Caspar David Friedrich.  However, the worlds of music and paintings

Portraits, piety, the classical world – it is the great celebratory themes which dominate our perception of the history of art, but the artist’s familiar world, both personal and social, filters in around the edges, creating vivid images of contemporary experience. Certain themes, like feasting and friendship, are constant over the centuries, but we will

This course will study the social and cultural history of Japan through the changing roles of Women through the ages.  Most social history is recorded through the achievements of men, particularly those based on the Confucian ideology of male dominant social structures.  However, women played an important role in determining the course of cultural developments,