Gustave Coubert, The Stone Breakers, 1849

No longer extant. This image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gustave_Courbet_-_The_Stonebreakers_-_WGA05457.jpg

This 5-week course deals with the period 1848-80 - a period of rapid industrial change and urbanisation throughout much of Europe. Though Paris remained very much the cultural capital, other nations were increasingly finding their voice. Taking as our title the new-found vogue for social and natural realism in painting and literature, we will meet such talismanic figures as Gustave Courbet, Émile Zola, Édouard Manet, and Charles Baudelaire.

On the political front, France is first an empire, and then it is not, while Germany goes in the opposite direction. It is the era of Napoleon III and Otto von Bismarck. Meanwhile, from Scandinavia to Bohemia, and from Italy to Russia, the painters, composers, and playwrights are forging new styles - often inspired by a sense of national identity.

RJW F222317 Online course (via Zoom)

5 weeks, Tuesday 10 January - Tuesday 7 February (incl.)

£60 (individual registration); £108 (for two people sharing one screen).