ACTION AND REACTION: HOW WESTERN ART EVOLVED

Distinguished Emeritus Professor Ian A Aaronson, Medical University of South Carolina, United States of America

Monday 19–Friday 23 January 11.15 am COURSE FEES R575; Staff and students R290

This course will explore the political, social and cultural forces that shaped Western art, reflected in the lives and work of its most transformative artists.

We will first discover how the rivalry between Siena and Florence spurred the groundbreaking frescoes of Giotto and Masaccio, which in turn paved the way for Michelangelo’s sublime paintings in the Sistine Chapel.

We will then see how, in northern Europe, the ideas of Erasmus of Rotterdam and Martin Luther introduced a humanist element into the religious paintings of Jan van Eyck, culminating in Pieter Bruegel’s busy depictions of everyday life.

We will next discover how the frivolous fantasies of Watteau and Fragonard were out of step with the Age of Reason, resulting in the cool yet powerful paintings of Jacques-Louis David. We will go on to see how the social strife that followed France’s defeat in its war against Prussia, together with Baron Haussmann’s transformation of the face of Paris, contributed to Edgar Degas’ revolutionary way of capturing urban life.

In the final lecture we will explore the role of the artist as advocate, through the searing etchings and paintings of Francisco Goya and the harrowing performance pieces by Marina Abramović exposing the horrors of war, as well as the arresting black and white photographs of South Africa’s Zanele Muholi, which give a voice to those marginalised by society.

Lecture titles

  1. Giotto and Masaccio: laying the foundations of the Italian Renaissance
  2. Jan van Eyck and Pieter Bruegel: the Northern Renaissance at a crossroads
  3. Jacques-Louis David and Eugène Delacroix: the quest for new directions
  4. Gustave Courbet and Edouard Manet: framing the Impressionists’ agenda
  5. William Kentridge and Ai Weiwei: pillars in the Age of Advocacy

TO BOOK: https://www.webtickets.co.za/performance.aspx?itemid=1575231909