The Art of Ancient Macedonia and the Hellenistic Kingdoms  

The course will be held on WEDNESDAY AFTERNOONS from 2-4pm. It will start on 8^th November and run for five weeks until 6^th December 2017 and will be led by Christina Grande.

We consider the complex period of the fourth to first centuries BC: the Macedonian kingdom of Philip II and Alexander and the subsequent Hellenistic world. Public and private patronage continued visual culture of the old Greek world reinterpreting it for changing political, geographical and philosophical contexts. New styles portrayed traditional subjects in more extreme ways: intense emotion, realism, dynamic movement and portraiture that conveyed inner thought. Opulent finds and paintings from the Royal Tombs at Vergina reveal Macedonian wealth. Hellenistic kingdoms such as Pergamon became vibrant artistic centres, where great public monuments used Greek myths to proclaim power. It is a crucial period for understanding how Greek art was reinterpreted in ways that would influence the Roman world and Renaissance Italy.

The five two-hourly sessions will be arranged as follows:

1. Ancient Macedonia: Philip II and Alexander and the new patrons of Greek art. The Royal Tombs at Vergina and other recent discoveries.
    
2. Sculpture in the Hellenistic Kingdoms: dramatic depictions of human motion and emotion; public monuments in the ‘baroque style’.
    
3. Sculpture in the Hellenistic Kingdoms: innovative studies of human diversity and the development of portraiture.
    
4. Late Hellenistic art and its legacy in the Roman world.
    
5. The luxury arts: goldwork, metalware, mosaic, glass, cameos and terracottas.

THIS EVENT IS NOW FULLY BOOKED, Members may apply for one of the limited number of WAITING LIST  places. NO PAYMENT SHOULD BE MADE. If a place becomes available, the waiting list will be contacted in order and payment will be requested at that time. Please contact the event organiser if in doubt.

Christina Grande is a lecturer in Classical Art, Architecture and Archaeology; Associate Lecturer at Birkbeck Art History Department for many years; Lecturer in Classical Art and Architecture at Leicester University and the Open University; and Senior Lecturer in Classical Art and Archaeology at Winchester University. Christina has lectured on Classical Art and its influence for many institutions including the British Museum and National Gallery.

Suggestions for reading (some only available from libraries orsecond hand):

Lucilla Burn, Hellenistic Art from Alexander the Great to Augustus, British Museum Press, 2004.

J.J. Pollitt, Art in the Hellenistic Age, Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Andrew Stewart, Art in the Hellenistic World: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Location: Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, 235 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8EP

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