Alex Gordon Lecture in the History of Art

Margaret F. MacDonald: "Whistler’s Art: 'An Arrangement in Line, Form & Colour'"

Alex Gordon Lecture in the History of Art
"Whistler’s Art: 'An Arrangement in Line, Form & Colour'"
Margaret F. MacDonald, Professor of History of Art, University of Glasgow

A skillful draftsman, a master printmaker, and a controversial painter, James McNeill Whistler created strikingly perceptive and atmospheric masterpieces. His art and writings reveal his strong response to color and how this conflicted with his belief in the central importance of drawing. This lecture focuses on works on paper that illustrate the development of his art from 1855 to 1903.

Nicholas Penny: "Lively Statuary in Florence before and after Andrea del Sarto"

Link to video of Nicholas Penny lecture

Alex Gordon Lecture in the History of Art. This lecture surveys the frequent appearance of sculpture in Florentine paintings in the decades before the rise of Andrea del Sarto and assesses the influence of sculpture on Florentine painting during the same period. It also explores the sculptures (both real and fictive) depicted in Andrea’s paintings as well as the models made for him, concluding with an examination of the extraordinary use of sculpture in the art of Jacopo Pontormo, Andrea’s pupil. 

Aileen Ribeiro: "Renoir and the Democracy of Fashion"

Link to video of Aileen Ribeiro lecture

Alex Gordon Lecture in the History of Art: "Renoir and the Democracy of Fashion," by Aileen Ribeiro, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, March 28, 2012.  The period after the fall of the Second Empire in France saw huge developments in the fashion industry, not just in haute couture, but also in the greater availability of ready-to-wear clothes and in the emergence of Paris's shopping culture. More people than ever before expressed an interest in fashion trends, a phenomenon that was reflected in contemporary art and literature.