Exploring Art History

It’s a Friday afternoon and our Lower Sixth artists are confronted by the bubbling enthusiasm of Alexandra Fielding, from ‘Art History Abroad’. She quickly has them thinking and working as art historians rather than their usual role as artists.  So they learn some context to Modernism in a short lecture from colleague Andy Mackay and begin to look at what critics and art historians have said about Matisse’s paintings, prints, sculptures and ceramics, before working in groups to make presentations about particular early C20th works by mostly English artists. Next year the Lower Sixth are required to write a dissertation on an area of art of their choice; it has to be a formal art historical essay and this was brilliant preparation.