New Crafts: Soapmaking
An informative and practical workshop – explore the history of soap, its ingredients and make a batch to take home. This workshop will cover the history of soap and look at ingredients that go in to handmade artisan soap. We … More details …
Reading Paintings: The Shock of the New
From Van Gogh to Picasso, this course focuses on the early days of modern art. There will be a case study of Futurism and artistic reactions to the First World War. Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Wyndham Lewis and Vorticism, Surrealism, Dada: Duchamp … More details …
Villanelles, Sonnets and Sestinas
Certain poetic forms have an enduring appeal for poets and readers alike. We shall read and discuss a variety of these, exploring the ways in which metre, rhyme and repetition contribute to a poem’s overall effect.
More details ...Women Artists of the 20th Century
The ‘art world’ like most places, is a male domain. Women artists are often marginalised and overlooked. Througout the day, we will not only study the lives and work of the women who contributed to the creative output of the … More details …
The Story of the Blues
Explore the social history that brought about Blues music and gain an understanding of its nature and origins.
More details ...Reading Paintings: La Belle Epoque
From 1870 to World War 1, the French Third Republic produced some amazing art. This course focuses on key figures such as Manet, Monet, Degas, Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec. Explore their studios, follow them to the Moulin Rouge and discover what … More details …
Thomas Hardy and Gerald Finzi
Thomas Hardy was one of the greatest of English poets, Gerald Finzi one of the subtlest and most sensitive of composers. The conjunction of the two led to a miraculous fusion – songs which are truly more than the sum … More details …
England in an Age of Reform 1815-1846
We will consider the reform act of 1832 and the Repeal of the Corn Laws, alongside the flowering of the romantic movement in poetry, the early works of Dickens and the technological advances of the time.
More details ...Landscapes in Literature 2
Further exploration of British landscape writing through selected texts of poetry and prose, from industrial and post-industrial landscapes, to the “new nature writing” of the 21st century. NB It is not necessary to have attended Landscapes in Literature 1.
More details ...Stained Glass from the Saxons to the 21st century
Following the golden years of the high medieval period, stained glass suffered a major decline for some 200 years. The Victorians were responsible for a major revival, which made way for the Arts and Craft movement to take thing forward … More details …
Landscapes in Literature 1
An exploration of British landscape writing through selected texts of poetry and prose, from the discovery of wild nature as a subject for exclamation and delight in the Romantic period, including passages from Defoe (1720s), the Wordsworths and Coleridge (early … More details …
Pop goes the Easel – An introduction to Pop Art
Pop brought an end to 100 yrs of modernism. As the world was still trying to come to terms with abstraction, a new generation of artists produced a hard edged, graphic representational style. With its mix of comic book graphics, … More details …
Villanelles, Sonnets and Sestinas
Certain poetic forms have an enduring appeal for poets and readers alike. We shall read and discuss a variety of these, exploring the ways in which metre, rhyme and repetition contribute to a poem’s overall effect.
More details ...French New Wave Cinema
Travel back to the late 50’s/early 60’s France when a group of new, young and dynamic film makers shook up the way films were made. Their films took France by storm and had an influence on film makers around the … More details …
From seed to fork: how plants evolved and humans adapted them
This is a day school in two halves. In the morning we explore the extraordinary 450 million-year evolution of plants and the inventive ways they solved the many problems arising from the move on to dry land – gravity, nutrition, … More details …