Art Goes to War: The Tragedies of Franz Marc and August Macke

When World War I broke out in August 1914, many German Expressionist artists initially believed it could be the apocalyptic event that would at last overthrow the self-satisfied materialism of the nation’s monarch and bourgeoisie. Franz Marc and August Macke, two of the leading artists of German Expressionism, were among those who enlisted for active…

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Love in the art of the ancient régime (or Love in the Art of 18th Century France)

Soon after ascending the throne at age 13, King Louis XV of France decided to abandon governance in favor of a life of sensual pleasures, to be enjoyed with his wife, mistresses official and unofficial, and countless encounters with young adventuresses brought to him from many parts of his country.  The formalities and complexities of…

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The Agecroft Story

Come hear the extraordinary story of how Agecroft Hall moved from Lancashire, England to Richmond, Virginia! Agecroft Hall started life as a rural estate in the 16th century, but several hundred years later, the Industrial Revolution was rapidly encroaching on the bucolic manor.  Learn why T.C. Williams, Jr. chose the house to become the centerpiece of…

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Impressionable Youth

Themes of childhood and family recur in nineteenth-century French Impressionist painting, from Berthe Morisot’s experimental self-portraits with her daughter Julie Manet, to Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s everyday scenes of his three sons and their nanny. Drawing primarily upon works from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, this lecture will closely…

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The Grand Tour: “Spring Break” for the 18th-Century Man

For most young men, the Grand Tour, a hallmark coming-of-age trip through France and Italy, was a folly, but for others it was a completely different experience. With the ever-popular Neoclassical movement continuing to take hold in Europe, artists like Benjamin West saw the Grand Tour as an opportunity for inspiration. Take a grand tour through the art and culture of this era and see how the classical past came alive again in 18th-century Britain and France.

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Icons: Windows into the Divine

Modern viewers often see the icon — a type of religious image still in use in the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches — as a charming and somewhat primitive type of painting. Nothing could be further from the truth. The icon, from its earliest inception, is a highly intellectual and consciously spiritualized image. The beliefs with which icons are infused are so powerful that they have led to their being outlawed for a time in the 8th and 9th centuries, but their meanings are so profound that their use has survived even the most concerted attempts to stifle them. In this lecture, Dr. Schrader introduces the theology behind the icon, briefly recounts the history of icons in the West, and explains the meanings behind some of the most important individual types of religious image.

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Fresco Painting in the Renaissance

Decorating walls with paintings made on fresh plaster is a grimy, laborious practice, which in the Middle Ages was thought to be the most mechanical and craftsman-like task of the painter. Beginning in the 14th century, however, higher artistic standards began to reveal just how splendid a chamber transformed by fresco painting could be. By the end of the 15th century, the fresco painter was hailed as the most ambitious and able artist of all. In this lecture we learn the techniques — good and bad — that mural painters used. See how truly great painters, such as Botticelli and Ghirlandaio in the 15th century and Michelangelo and Raphael in the 16th century, triumphed as fresco artists above all others.

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First Impressions: A Brief History of Early Illustrated Texts

During the mid-15th century, the invention of printing and movable type changed the distribution of the visual medium. In this talk, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts librarian Nick Curotto covers the processes and technology of early printing and assembling of texts with a focus on the incorporation of print illustrations. The techniques of relief and intaglio printing will be discussed highlighting the artists, artisans, and printers who were imperative in the progression of technologies during the hand-press period of the 15th – 18th centuries.

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