We are watching a series of lectures entitled "The World's Greatest Paintings". These are given by an American Professor and range from the 1300's right up to modern times. Many of the paintings are familiar to most of us, yet the introduction of less familiar ones bring variety to this course.

Art Appreciation  July 2026

Our July viewing was in two parts, the first showing items in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  We were shown several pictures of Photography when the art was in its infancy, the lecturer explaining the different methods used to produce the pictures.  We then moved on to another room in the museum.  Within this one room were several smaller rooms displaying furniture and artefacts from different countries and at different periods of time.

For the second part of the afternoon’s viewing we watched the first lecture of a new series ‘Dutch Masters: The Age of Rembrandt’.  This gave us the background to art in 16^th century Netherlands, a time which produced many artists, such as Hals, Vermeer and Rembrandt.

We plan to continue watching both series of lectures in coming months.

Val Gosden

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