Music in Art

Short course

+44 (0)20 7942 2000
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Explore a wide variety of images of music-making in European architecture, sculpture, painting and the decorative arts from the 9th to the 19th centuries. You will discover examples ranging from church portals, medieval ivories and manuscript illumination to the sculpture, tapestries, frescoes and paintings of later centuries. Music was an essential part of ecclesiastical and secular life in the art and sculpture of Europe, as a means of praising God and celebrating more earthly emotions.

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Course Leaders
Dr Sally Dormer, Dr Paula Nuttall and Clare Ford-Wille

Clare Ford-Wille is an associate lecturer at Birkbeck College, University of London and also lectures regularly for many other institutions. Dr Sally Dormer is a specialist medieval art historian, lecturer and V&A Year Course Director. Dr Paula Nuttall is an art historian, lecturer specialising in the Renaissance and V&A Year Course Director.

I have taken many Short Courses at the V&A and I come away each week feeling inspired, stimulated by the facts, and wishing to know even more. 2015/2016 Short Course Student

Course overview

Medieval representations of music-making range from sacred manuscripts and tapestries to the sculptures adorning church portals and capitals. The Renaissance saw the development of sacred polyphony and secular song, and representations of music-making occur in increasingly varied contexts from the sacred, Van Eyck’s Ghent altarpiece or Della Robbia’s Cantoria, to secular depictions in the work of Bosch or Bruegel. The seventeenth century saw fascinating variations in a wider social context from Caravaggio to Jan Steen and Vermeer. The fêtes champêtres of Watteau heralded a new subject, popular in the 18th century and in the 19th century music-making spread throughout the social classes from the Biedermeier family gatherings to the paintings of Renoir.

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Further information

• This course has a Half Term break on 20 February • Refreshments served • Price reductions available for Seniors (60+), jobseekers (ES40 holders) and registered disabled people

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Short course: Music in Art

16 January 2019 - 13 March 2019

£325.00 - £378.00

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Need help enrolling? Talk to the admissions team:

+44 (0)20 7942 2000

Open 10.00 - 13.00, Monday to Sunday (closed 24-26 December)