Portraiture is a quintessentially renaissance art form which evolved in response to new ideas about realism, likeness and posterity. This lecture looks at its development in Italy and the north, across a variety of...

Loaded with symbolism, the colour blue creates meaning, provokes emotion and ignites memory on a personal, and a cultural level, throughout the world. From the scared shade of Ultramarine, to the ancient roots of...

What is the Bayeux Tapestry really all about? A power struggle, dynastic rivalries, broken promises, diplomatic relations in peril, military prowess and the building of a super power? How was this amazing document in...

In 1943, the German SS officers in charge of Auschwitz-Birkenau ordered that an orchestra should be formed among the female prisoners. Forty-seven women and girls were drafted into a hurriedly-assembled band that would play...

Before he was a famous artist - or indeed an artist at all - Vincent Van Gogh was a disgruntled art salesman, a failed suitor, and a would-be teacher. We glimpse Vincent's life through...

It’s hard to laugh at something too immediate. The surest sign that something serious has finished is when you can laugh at it. The end of the British Empire, which started with the partition...

E H Shepard loved Christmas, and this lecture describes, including his own words much of the magic and joy of successive festive seasons, from those of his own childhood to others throughout his long...