Previous Lectures We will be archiving the lectures as we go through the year, so you can look back on lectures, perhaps look at some of the links associated with them. 2025 Membership Year March 20th Mike Higginbottom English Country Houses- not quite what they seem Since the Second World War, visiting country houses has become one of Britain’s major tourist activities. Historic homes ranging from the great palaces of Blenheim, Castle Howard and Chatsworth to modest manor houses have opened their doors to the paying public. Visiting the fabulously rich cultural heritage of great houses provides a very broad range of experiences – from major monuments preserved apparently at a particular moment in time to homes which are palpably loved and lived in. February 20th Jo Walton The Art and Craft of John Piper An abstract painter in the 1930s, John Piper was also a writer, critic and typographer and his love of architecture – especially medieval churches and stained glass – made him a highly sensitive observer of his surroundings. During the Second World War he became one of the best-known Official War Artists, creating powerful images of the destruction of Coventry Cathedral, the Houses of Parliament and of the city of Bath, as well as recording a wide range of buildings, from derelict Welsh cottages to the grandeur of Windsor Castle. Piper’s friendships with figures from the worlds of literature, ballet and music led him in further creative directions. January 16th Sarah Burles Lord Fitzwilliam and his Bequest to Cambridge The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge was founded on the death of Richard, 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam in 1816, five years after the Dulwich Picture Gallery and eight years before the National Gallery in London. His bequest included paintings, drawings, prints, medieval manuscripts and books and, in addition, a sum of money to build “a good substantial museum repository for the increase of learning”. Who was Lord Fitzwilliam? How did he acquire his extensive collection? What prompted him to leave it to the University of Cambridge and why was Napoleon partly responsible for the founding of one of the great regional museums? 2024 Membership Year Special Interest Tuesday 5th November 2024 Egleton Bird Watching Centre. LE15 8BT The Revd. Dr. Nicholas Henderson Two lectures 10.30 -11.40 and 12.00 -13.10 How to Read the English Country Church It is possible to ‘read’ the passage of time, movements, cultures and peoples in the architecture and art forms evident in many of our English country churches. These lectures take us through four overarching eras from the pre-Christian era, through the arrival of the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Normans and onwards to the sixteenth century and the epoch changing Tudors. Beyond the Tudors we move into the establishment of a new Protestant England. Later the profoundly destructive changes of the seventeenth century Commonwealth era are followed by restoration and liturgical change. 21 November 2024 Marissa Beekenkamp-Wladimiroff Van Gogh’s 444 days in Provence To celebrate the bicentenary of the establishment of the National Gallery in London a huge Van Gogh exhibition is planned for 2024! The show will focus on the artist’s period in Provence where he painted some of his most recognisable paintings. Known as his brightest and most expressive paintings, this is also the period in which he became ill and cut off his ear. We will look at his own personal struggles and ambitions, the art that influenced him and the art he wanted to make. Despite his time in Provence only lasting about a year and Vincent not finding the support or recognition he was craving, the paintings he created in the South of France would turn out to become some of the most influential, recognisable and loved paintings ever made by an artist. 17 October Rosamund Bartlett The Culture of Ukraine This lecture tells Ukraine's story through the shared culture which binds its proud people together. We will explore the sacred art and architecture of Kyiv and its links to Byzantium, as well as the distinctive characters and ethnicities of Odesa and Lviv. Tracing Ukraine's complicated multi-ethnic history also means looking at its rich folk culture traditions. These range from native song and the secret codes embedded in ancient embroidery, which have exerted a surprising impact on modern painting and contemporary haute couture, to Cossack dancing and borshch. 19 September at our new venue Sian Walters Behind the Scenes at the National Gallery In 2024 the National Gallery celebrates its 200th birthday. In the run up to this special anniversary, join me as I explore some of the nation’s best-loved paintings in a new light, revealing details which cannot be seen with the naked eye and discussing what goes on behind the scenes in the conservation, framing and scientific departments. The lecture will result in a greater understanding of not only the art itself, but also of the work the National Gallery does to care for it, present it and interpret it. Few of the gallery’s works retain their original frames but an expert team will often source and adapt examples which complement the paintings historically, or indeed hand-carve new ones from scratch. We will also look at the technical challenges involved in hanging, displaying, moving and framing the collection and the various solutions devised by the Art Handling Team. Many of the paintings in the gallery were designed for a very specific function, an altarpiece such as Piero’s Baptism of Christ for example, so how do the curators allow us to interpret and view these within a museum context? Finally, we’ll talk about restoration and conservation, exploring extraordinary details from works such as the Wilton Diptych, which have only been discovered recently thanks to scientific analysis. A day out to Stratford on Avon, including Backstage tour of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre - Thursday 26th September 2024 Visit to RSC Stratford and seeing performance of Northern Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet We are planning to visit the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford on Thursday 26th September 2024 for a backstage tour (further details to follow as September’s tours have not yet been released) and a matinee performance of the Northern Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet. This is the first time in decades that ballet has been performed on the main stage at the RSC. The production is described as having “glorious dancers, eye catching sets and with Prokofiev’s timeless music this is ballet at its most dramatic, romantic and intense”. The production has received 5 star reviews, being described as "A wonderful, exhilarating and ultimately extremely affecting retelling of the oft-told story. A must-see." by the Yorkshire Post. 20 June Christopher Garibaldi George Stubbs (1724 - 1806) 'The English Leonardo' Many art historians and critics have compared the work of Stubbs to that of Leonardo da Vinci, one even christening him the ‘Leonardo of Liverpool’ to reflect his humble origins as the son of a Liverpool leather worker. The comparison can seem hubristic until one considers the intense scientific method and investigation that lay behind the production by Stubbs of his world-famous Anatomy of the Horse published in 1766 – a work which revolutionised the understanding and depiction of equine subjects. This lecture looks at the life and work of this country’s greatest animal painter, putting Stubbs in the context of British sporting artists of the eighteenth century more generally. It focusses on his depiction of equestrian subjects such as the National Gallery’s Whistlejacket but also looks at the broader themes he addressed. 16 May 2024 David Winpenny Coronation : Majesty, Myth and Music. The Development of a National Ritual From King Edgar in 973 to Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, the coronation ceremonies of successive monarchs have been both bastions of tradition and prime examples of adaptation to new needs and circumstances. This talk looks at the development of the ceremonies, their purpose, and the myths that surround the public recognition and crowning of a monarch. The associated regalia – crowns, sceptres and orbs, and also the more obscure items such as armills and buskins – developed as part of the coronation ceremonies over the years, and their use (and misuse) is considered. One of the most important aspects of a coronation has always been music, from plainchant, through the compositions of composers like Byrd, Purcell, Handel, Stanford and Parry to the works written for the current Queen’s crowning. The talk will examine what makes a good ceremonial piece, the texts that were set and will include audio examples. There will also be answers to some interesting questions, including: What did Elgar say about the speed of the National Anthem? How did the youngest chorister obey a call of nature in 1953 – and where did peers keep their sandwiches during the ceremony? How did the Archbishop injure Queen Victoria? And who occupied the 'Loose Box' in the Abbey in 1902? 9th May 2024 Visit to Gainsborough’s House and Kentwell Hall Sudbury Suffolk We are planning a fascinating trip to Suffolk, with a guided tour of Gainsborough’s House in Sudbury together with a chance to see the Philip De Laszlo exhibition that will be on during our visit. In the afternoon, we will go to Kentwell Hall in Long Melford, an early Tudor moated house which is also a private home. We will make our own way round the gardens and then have a private tour of the house with the owner Patrick Philips. The cost of this trip will depend on numbers, but will be in the region of £76-£82 per person, depending on the total number participating. Note: Historic Houses members have free entry to both properties, saving £13/head at Gainsborough’s House, (but will need to pay £5 for the De Laszlo exhibition) and £17.85 at Kentwell Hall. The cost is inclusive of travel in an executive coach and a sandwich lunch at Gainsborough’s House. In order for the visit to proceed, we need a minimum of 25 participants. TASR members will be given priority and non-members are welcome if there is space. If you are interested in this trip please contact our Visits Organiser, Della Stones – djstones@aol.com, for further details and a booking form. 18 April Sophie Matthews Music in Art So many of our historical references for musical instruments can be found in works of art. Not only can these windows into the past show us what the instruments looked like but also the social context in which they would have been played. Music and different instruments also play a strong role within symbolism in art. Sophie explores the instruments in selected works and then gives live demonstrations on replicas of the instruments depicted. 21 March 2024 Twigs Way The Life and Art of Marianne North Victorian Botanical Artist and Traveller An unconventional life painting exotic and rare plants in their native lands. Living and travelling with the ‘liberty of a wild bird’, but maintaining the dress and manners of a Victorian lady. The pursuit of plants took her around the world whilst her paintings were destined for Kew. This talk explores Marianne North’s work, her social context and the eventual creation of her gallery at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. 15 February 2024 Julia Marwood Introducing the Glasgow Boys Disillusioned with the stuffiness and sentimentality of academic painting, a group of radical young painters burst onto the Glasgow art scene in the early 1880s and set in motion the stirrings of modernism in Scottish painting. Working out of doors in Scotland and France, they painted contemporary rural subjects strongly influenced by Dutch and French realism, especially the Naturalist paintings of Jules Bastien-Lepage and the tonal painting of the American artist James McNeill Whistler. This lecture introduces the characters and their works, and shows how they set the scene for what was still to come – especially the explosion of talent centred on the Glasgow School of Art under Francis Newbery, and the Scottish Colourists. 18 January 2024 Chris Aslan Unravelling the Silk Road Wool, cotton and silk have each played a crucial role in the fortunes of Central Asia. Wool created the clothing and housing needed by the great nomadic cultures that were to dominate Middle Asia. Silk was more valuable than gold and used as currency, creating a network of trading routes that led to the first outbreak of globalisation. Cotton was the cause of Russian and then Soviet Colonisation and continues to cause controversy today as well as human misery and environmental catastrophe. The felts, carpets, embroideries, robes and veils of the Silk Road stratified wealth, displayed religious and political entrenchments and changed the fortunes of this fascinating part of the world; a meeting place between Mohammed and Marx. From the gold of medieval altarpieces to photography, techniques and materials capture its rich and subtle possibilities.

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