History of Art

Visiting Students who apply for ‘History of Art’ will be able to select their options from a wide range of courses available in the field of art and architectural history. No previous of knowledge in the subject is required. Please review the range of subjects on offer below. It would also be possible to focus on specific artists and architects as required.

Students may apply to study courses in History of Art as their major or minor subject, but must also select tutorials from one other subject area.

• A Survey of Western Art and Architecture from Antiquity to the Late Nineteenth Century
• Medieval and Renaissance Art in Italy
• Neoplatonism and Renaissance Art
• Donatello
• Michelangelo
• Titian
• Seventeenth Century Painting
• Baroque Art and Architecture
• Art of the Grand Tour
• Nineteenth Century British and French Art
• The Pre-Raphaelites
• Impressionism and Post-Impressionism
• A Survey of English Architecture
• A Survey of Oxford Art and Architecture
• English Gothic Architecture
• English Cathedrals
• French Gothic Architecture
• The Classical Language of Architecture
• The English Country House
• English Baroque Architecture
• Palladio and Palladianism
• Victorian Art and Architecture
• Museums and the History of Collecting

Specialist topics for LMH visiting students:

The Origins and Development of the International Gothic Style in Europe, c. 1380 to c. 1420:

International Gothic is a well-defined artistic current which although a product of the French and Burgundian Court spread rapidly to other European centres, including parts of Italy. Artists at this time desired to depict aspects of the real world. It thus witnessed to the development of naturalism in landscape and portraiture as well as costume detail. It is a unique period in the history of art which was also concerned to express sumptuous richness and courtly splendour. It reached a peak of naturalistic refinement in the famous illuminated manuscript, the Très Riches Heures, painted by the Limbourg Brothers for the Duke de Bury. Other works of a more rugged realism include Claus Sluter’s sculpted Well of Moses, or Broederlam’s Dijon Altarpiece, commissioned by the Duke of Burgundy. It was essentially a court art, the style and the taste for such luxurious works disseminated throughout the royal centres of Europe, each region expressing a variant of International Gothic. [This course would be appropriate for those who might wish to pursue it as a ‘minor’ element.]

Reality and Symbolism in Northern European Painting, c. 1400-c. 1500.

The course focuses on the remarkable developments which took place in fifteenth-century Netherlands / Low Countries (Belgium and Holland today) towards realism in painting. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, Hubert and Jan van Eyck had perfected the oil painting technique which enabled artists henceforth to render objects and people with greater, convincing detail, exquisitely demonstrated in their famous altarpiece of the Adoration of the Lamb. The course involves looking at other key artists, such as Rogier van de Weyden, whose deeply emotional Descent from the Cross was influential on many artists. Other major painters include Hans Memling, Hugo van der Goes and Gerard David. This course offers the opportunity to study these artists’ technical and stylistic approaches, the symbolic function of their altarpieces, as well as patronage of these works in this important period of artistic development. [This course would be appropriate for those who might wish to pursue it for a ‘major’ or ‘minor’ element.]

While no prior experience is necessary applicants are asked to submit written work in History of Art or related subjects.

Dr Edward Clarke teaches art history and English literature at the Department of Continuing Education, Oxford University, and numerous colleges.  Dr Clarke’s book, The Secret Mind of Art, was published by Angelico Press in 2023. Other books of his include A Book of Psalms (Paraclete Press, 2020), The Vagabond Spirit of Poetry (Iff Books, 2014), and The Later Affluence of W.B. Yeats and Wallace Stevens (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

Dr Alice Little teaches the 'Museums and the History of Collecting' course.  Dr Little is a professional researcher in music, history, and the history of collecting, as well as an author of fiction.

Dr Lynda Dennison tutors in the History of Art at the Middlebury Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Oxford, and has taught this subject at the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education. When not teaching, she is researching in her field of specialisation which is medieval illuminated and decorated manuscripts of the Gothic period, on which she has published books and many articles. She is a former research fellow of Lady Margaret Hall and a current Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.