To illumine the gloom of recent political and climatic events in our respective countries, we are pleased to offer a virtual Inscape ‘study tour’ to eight museums on the occasion of their stellar summer exhibitions. We shall ‘travel’ to Western Europe, London, and the USA. Each Inscape Lecture will attempt to “set” or contextualize the individual show in the architectonic surroundings provided by these particular premier class museums. We wish to praise these museums for providing the world with a most brilliant efflorescence of summer exhibitions!
Each represents a well-loved public museum or gallery, with staff (and the funds) brilliantly to care for their extraordinary legacy collections. What sets them apart, we believe, is that those running these shows go way beyond their remit, consciously to fill the sizeable gaps in their respective collections in terms of locating the missing (female) artists. These gaps have grown over time to be experienced by many as painful and ludicrous ‘omissions and commissions’ by the powers that be. We both feel and see that the question confronting us in the study of fine arts is a very simple one: WHO is telling the story? Who can claim, let alone know, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the Truth?? Who exactly is vocalising and verbalising things otherwise silenced ? Is it a tale told and retold by the men alone, or whispered by the women alone, or could it be a tale told more authentically by men and women who combine what were heretofor separate points of view? We have intended an expansion in the story of art as Inscape embraces, especially, the women who have been all but left out of the narrative. It is in fact thrilling to us that half of these summer exhibitions are devoted to championing the fine artwork made by women! Our future endeavours will be balanced by this more inclusive perspective.
A timely moment. 2023 is the year of two important anniversaries: the 170th anniversary of the birth of Van Gogh, and the 50th anniversary of the death of Picasso. Those of us so keenly aware of their achievement must surely welcome a chance to celebrate them ourselves! As you might predict, the eponymous exhibitions in honour of each are spread out across the Western world: Van Gogh exhibitions stretch from Paris to Amsterdam and to Chicago, with a welcome special focus on his last, most vigorous and uplifting work Meanwhile, a full cornucopia of Picasso exhibitions can be found in Paris and Madrid. We will rediscover his supreme ability to inverse, even to reverse, everything he saw or experienced. He persuades us to see ‘reality’ anew through the fecund brilliance of his Olympian imagination. It is impossible to find his match in the realm of fine art.
We discuss the latest revelations regarding that 16c Renaissance woman extraordinaire, Lavinia Fontana, in a splendid exhibition in Dublin, that will overturn our understanding of the accepted canon of the Renaissance. Both her portraits and her history paintings reveal a particular kind of searching intelligence and humour unknown in the work of her male contemporaries.
Meanwhile in Dulwich Picture Gallery (that magnificent, often unjustly marginalised first public art gallery in Britain), can be found a glorious exhibition on Berthe Morisot, who in her own time was not only equal to her fellow male Impressionists, but certainly was in the forefront with her ability to capture instants of movement using alive and almost pulsating brushstrokes. We pair the Dulwich show with that on Georgia O’Keeffe in MOMA New York, comparing Morisot’s achievement in the face of the cultural prejudices regarding her subject matter, with O’Keeffe’s overt disregard for .such impediments. We see how the very strokes on the canvases and paper by each woman express the immortal power of their life force.
We live in exciting times for brief yet deep dives into the pools of the past as we seek more consciously to include the ‘female side’ of the story of art worldwide. In discussing ‘The Rossettis’exhibition at Tate Britain, we ask the pertinent question as to whether Elizabeth Siddal has been included in order to pander to the current developments in the conversation about inclusion. Though she was clearly Dante Rossetti’s cherished muse, she herself was never championed by him as an artist in her own right. The truth about Elizabeth Siddal is that she was an intelligent and perceptive painter. Through the most subtle of signs in her work, she questioned the mores of her time only to be bullied into near extinction by the full force of the patriarchal script of the 19c.
Tate Modern takes a highly original approach, pairing the swirling visions of the pioneer abstractionist Hilma Af Klint with the soft-edged meditations of early Piet Mondrian. We reveal the influence of Theosophical mysticism on each painter. Both were inspired by Theosophists’ belief that each person’s aim in life must be spiritual emancipation. Both initially expressed their artistic and spiritual freedom in exuberant responses to the natural world, before ultimately condensing their thoughts into geometrical configurations and abstractions. Their work on canvas can be seen as evolutionary process. The exhibition invites new thinking about the unique power of abstract art to present spiritual messages.
We begin with an exhibition at the dynamic, new-kid-on-the-block Barberini Museum in Potsdam, former residence of the Prussian kings. ‘The Sun: Source of Light in Art’ tells a fascinating story, from antiquity to the present, of artists’ representation of the sun, from scratching of its rays into a gessoed panel to attempting to show the optical phenomena brought about by staring directly into it. En route, the exhibition discusses the history of the sun as artistic and mythical metaphor, of sun-gods and sun-kings, the sun as the source of a spectrum of colours, and as indication of emotional effect. A true cornucopia, the exhibition includes works by Rubens, Turner, Monet, Seurat and Olafur Eliasson: altogether providing a gateway into many of our discussions of artist’s relationships to light during this course.
Booking Information:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
This online course via Zoom has been developed by Louise Friend and Nicholas Friend. It will be presented by Nicholas Friend, Co-Founder of Inscape. It is held on Wednesdays and repeated on Fridays, beginning on Wednesday 17 May 2023 at 5 pm and ending on Friday 7 July 2023 at 5 pm. Please note the time of 5 pm: Nicholas will be lecturing from California (at 9 am his time) for the duration of this course.
You may choose to attend individual sessions or all eight. If you would like to attend but cannot manage a particular date, then be assured we will be sending recordings of sessions to all participants. Each session meets from 20 minutes before the advertised time of the lecture, and each lecture lasts roughly one hour, with around 15 minutes discussion.
Cost: £360 members or £440 non-members for the course of 8 sessions or £45 members or £55 non-members per individual session. All sessions are limited to 21 participants to permit an after-lecture discussion session.
Due to the coronavirus cheques are not a viable option at this time. Instead, please make your payment to Friend&Friend Ltd by bank transfer to our account with Metrobank, bank sort code 23-05-80, account number 13291721 or via PayPal to nicholas@inscapetours.co.uk, or credit/debit card by phone to Henrietta on 07940 719397. She is available Tuesdays 10-12 and 2-5 pm or Thursdays 10-12 and 2-5 pm. Do get in touch if you would like extra support learning how to use Zoom.
How to Set Up a PayPal account::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Click on this link: https://www.paypal.com/uk/home
In the upper right-hand corner of the screen, click “Sign up.”
On the following screen choose “Personal account” and click “Next.”
On the next page, you’ll be asked to enter your name, email address and to create and confirm a password. When finished, click “Next.”
Click “Agree and create account” and your PayPal account will be created.
How to Connect your Bank Account to your PayPal account:::::::::::::::::::::::
Log on to your account and click the “Wallet” option in the menu bar running along the top of the screen.
On the menu running down the left side of the screen, click the “Link a credit or debit card”.
Enter the card information you wish to link to your PayPal account and click “Link card” for debit card.
How to Send Money::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Log on to your account. Click Send & Request.
Enter the email address of the person you wish to send money to: nicholas@inscapetours.co.uk
Type in the amount you wish to send, click continue then press ‘Send Money Now’.
INSCAPE CULTURAL STUDY SOCIETY 