• Henley DFAS

Forthcoming lectures

Exploring Bach's St Matthew Passion Thursday 21st March 2024 at 10.45am and 2.15pm Simultaneous transmission a.m. only

Lecturer: Sandy Burnett


Exploring Bach’s St Matthew Passion
Musician and broadcaster Sandy Burnett returns to the Arts Society Henley with a special presentation on Johann Sebastian Bach’s Matthew Passion, a masterful work which combines tunefulness, craftsmanship, dramatic power and spirituality in equal measure.

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Art Crime: Myth and Reality Thursday 18th April 2024 10.45am and 2.15pm. Simultaneous transmission a.m. only

Lecturer: Will Korner


Art Crime: Myth & Reality

This provides an introduction and history to the variety of types of art crime: from (in)famous museum heists and Nazi looting, to antiquities looting and trafficking, to fakes and forgeries and finally to the everyday nature of art and valuables crime.

These are all accompanied by case studies that would be balanced between well-known cases to much less known but more detailed ones in which Will has been directly involved.

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Dazzling Dufy: An Invitation to a Luminous Feast with Raoul Dufy Thursday 16th May 2024 at 10.45am and 2.15pm. Simultaneous transmission a.m. only

Lecturer: Mary Alexander


Dazzling Dufy: An Invitation to a Luminous Feast with Raoul Dufy
Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) was a key player in early 20th century avant garde art, design and literary/theatrical circles in Paris. As a widely travelled polymath, Dufy's charismatic personality, wit and curiosity about the world was infectious.
 
 
His imagination and technical virtuosity - across a range of media including painting and lithography, posters, book illustration, theatrical set design, textiles and fashion, ceramics and large murals - cut across all conventional boundaries. Whether a small intricate woodcut illustrating a love poem, or the truly gigantic 1937 world fair murals depicting the role of electricity in the modern age, the effect is mesmerising.
 
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The Art of State Ceremonial Music Thursday 20th June 2024 10.45am and 2.15pm. Simultaneous transmission a.m. only

Lecturer: Dr Graham Jones


The Art of State Ceremonial Music
 
The UK provides some of the biggest Ceremonial Events in the world ,and arguably the best in the world, but why is that? How do the military prepare for major events such as State Opening of Parliament, State Visits, National day of Remembrance, Royal Weddings or even a State Funeral?
 
 
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The Glories of Byzantium Thursday 19th September 2024 10.45am and 2.15pm

Lecturer: Jane Angelini


The Glories of Byzantium
The importance of the role played by Byzantium as a link in the great chain of world history is an important theme. With its roots firmly in the Ancient World of Greece and Rome the Byzantine period – AD 330 -1453 – spans the medieval centuries.
 
 
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'I Saw a New Heaven and a New Earth' (Revelations 21): The Gothic Cathedral as the Heavenly Jerusalem Thursday 17th October 2024 10.45am and 2.15pm. Simultaneous transmission a.m. only

Lecturer: Emily Chappell


‘I saw a New Heaven and a New Earth’ (Rev 21) : The Gothic Cathedral as the Heavenly Jerusalem
This lecture will consider the aims and motivations of the master masons who built the great Gothic cathedrals of England and France.
We will study several key buildings: their architecture and stained glass, the influence of liturgical practice and religious symbolism on their layout and the importance of light and colour in their interiors. We will look at the technical challenges and how these were overcome by an extraordinary determination to build Heavenly Jerusalem on earth.
 
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The Invention of Photography and its Impact on Early Modern Painting Thursday 21st November 2024 (post AGM) at 10.30am only. Please note earlier time. Simultaneous transmission.

Lecturer: Dr Caroline Levisse


The Invention of Photography and its Impact on Early Modern Painting
Invented at the end of the 1830s, photography triggered a visual revolution. At the time, some feared that photography would replace painting altogether. It certainly did not but painting was not left untouched either.
Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise, 1873 - Gustave Le Gray, The Brig, 1856
 
In this lecture we will consider how photography participated in changing the face of painting in the second half of the 19th century. It introduced a new relationship between reality and its representation that influenced painters such as the Realists and the Impressionists. It also encouraged painters to explore new directions. Freed from having to record the external world, painters could focus on more intangible things (such as emotions) or on formal aspects (such as colour for its own sake).
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The Christmas Story in Art Thursday 12th December 2024 10.45am and 2.15pm. Simultaneous transmission a.m. only

Lecturer: Sarah Ciacci


The Christmas Story in Art
In this talk we will look at works of art that depict episodes from the story of Christmas.
 
 
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