1. An Introduction to the history of British art
Master d’études anglophones
Arts et culture visuelle des pays anglophones
41NE06AA:
An Introduction to the history of British art

2. In this seminar, we will examine the various themes and issues that have informed the history of art in Britain.
In particular we will look at:
- the history of the major aesthetic movements and writings on art, from the Tudors to the present day (Royal Academy, Pre-Raphaelites, Arts & Crafts Movement, the Modernists, the Young British Artists, etc.) and their interface with the social and political context.
- portraiture and landscape as the dominant genres in British painting, and their role in the representation of individuals and their changing relation to nature within the social and political economy of visual signs in British history.
Ultimately we will try to address the issue of a specific British idiom in art, what is often referred to as ‘the Britishness of British art’.

3. Provisional programme
18.01: General Introduction / Holbein, the Reformation and Henry VIII / Nicholas Hilliard and
Elisabeth I
25.01: The early Stuarts: Charles I, Van Dyck / The late Stuarts and the Glorious Revolution / : New ways of seeing : the new philosophy, the new science (Newton, Locke, Addison)
08.02 : William Hogarth and the rise of an English school of art
15.02 : NO CLASS (winter reading week)
22.02 : Sir Joshua Reynolds and the Royal Academy
01.03 : The English landscape garden
08.03 : Thomas Gainsborough, the art of landscape; Burke, Gilpin, the picturesque and the
sublime
15.03 : The watercolourists; Constable and Turner
22.03 : Sir Thomas Lawrence and portraiture; Victorian art and the Pre-Raphaëlites; the Arts &
Crafts movement
29.03 : Walter Sickert, the War Artists, the Bloomsbury Group
19.04 : Francis Bacon and David Hockney;
26.04 : Lucian Freud; the Young British Artists; the contemporary scene

4. Student participation and evaluation:
a) 1 book presentation: in class, 5 minutes max
Prepare a docx file with book details (full reference, table of contents), a short summary and a few important quotes
b) 1 oral presentation: in class, minutes max
With Powerpoint
or 1 dossier: homework
Printed version + docx file
c) Final essay in class: to be confirmed
Required reading:
Vaughan, William, British Painting. The Golden Age from Hogarth to Turner, London: Thames & Hudson , 1999
Wilton, Andrew, Five Centuries of British Painting. From Holbein to Hodgkin, London: Thames & Hudson, 2001

5. Course digital workspace: MOODLE 41NE06AA:
To see the artworks:
See also the collections of the following institutions:
Yale Center for British Art:
Tate Britain:
National Portrait Gallery :
Course digital workspace: MOODLE
41NE06AA:
An Introduction to the history of British art
Frédéric Ogée
To see the artworks:
See also the collections of the following institutions:
Yale Center for British Art:
Tate Britain:

6. To see the artworks: http://www.artcyclopedia.com/
See also the collections of the following institutions:
Yale Center for British Art:
Tate Britain: