Learning outcomes
This course has been designed to enable you to:
- Gain a greater knowledge of the art of Shakespeare’s time;
- Evaluate the relationship between poetry and painting;
- Understand the cultural, social and political influences at work in the arts.
Course sessions:
1. Setting the Scene
1.1 Poets, Painters and the Paragone
1.2 Shakespeare’s England
In these sessions I’ll introduce you to the historical context, looking at the history of the relationship between poetry and painting and wider debates about the arts in Renaissance Europe in the first part of the session. In the second part we’ll explore the specific cultural context in England at this period, looking at the political, social, and religious climate, as well as the literary and artistic contexts.
2. O Shows, Shows, Mighty Shows
2.1 Entertaining Elizabeth
2.2 Jacobean Masques and a Real-Life Paragone
In the first part of this class we’ll focus on Elizabeth I, looking at the entertainments organised by courtiers during the frequent royal progresses, in which poetry, painting, ephemeral decoration and carpentry all contributed to courtiers' attempts to influence the monarch. In the second part we’ll focus on the court masques which dominated the Jacobean court entertainment calendar: tremendously complex examples of interaction between different artists, and a hotbed for the festering of resentment and rivalries between artisans.
3. Body and Soul Emblems and Imprese
3.1 Taking it Personally: Imprese
3.2 Et Occulte, Et Aperte: Emblems
In these sessions we’ll explore the emblem and the impresa, motifs which included both verbal and visual elements. These were found everywhere in the culture, from plays and poetry to the visual arts – on clothing, in interior decoration and in portraits. We will discover the different rules about how emblems and imprese should be constructed, the reasons behind their special popularity in England, and their complex interplay of visual and verbal meaning.
4. Looke Here Upon This Picture: Portrait Miniatures
4.1 Making Miniatures at the Elizabethan Court
4.2 Poetic Miniatures and the Making of the Miniatures Show
In the first part of this session we’ll explore the unique methods and materials behind the portrait miniature, and the special place it held in Tudor culture. We will look at a rich array of works by the two most talented miniaturists of the period, Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver. In the second part we’ll see how the miniaturists’ works inspired poetry by Shakespeare, and I’ll take you through the process behind the creation of the 2019 exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, ‘Elizabethan Treasures: Miniatures by Hilliard and Oliver’.
5. Pretty Morals
5.1 Poetry, Painting and the Domestic Interior
5.2 Summing Up
In the final sessions we will explore the interactions between poetry and painting in the domestic sphere. We’ll consider the many references to visual culture in poets such as Shakespeare and Spenser, and the ways poetry could appear in visual culture. Finally, we’ll wrap up the course and review the different aspects of the relationship between poetry and painting we’ve uncovered together.
Certificate of Participation
At the end of your Winter Festival course(s) a Certificate of Participation will be sent to you electronically.
Non-credit bearing
Courses on our Virtual Winter Festival of Learning are non-credit bearing.
