The 18th century in Europe was bursting at the seams with extraordinary people and ground-breaking events. Art and artists were unleashed onto the wider society as a proliferation of talent burgeoned expansively across the continent. The Grand Tour was consolidated, aristocrats began to obsessively collect art, public art galleries evolved, the Royal Academy and French Salon was consolidated and new synthetic pigments were invented. And charging alongside were the roars of colonialism, industrialization, the Enlightenment, the rights of man, Darwinism and political revolution. A vivid, thrilling and complicated time that has led British historians to term it the “Long 18th Century”, encapsulating events in the centuries before and after - to make greater sense of the Homeric nature of this time 

And it is art - as ever - that gives us most vivid insight into this world. Canaletto. Hogarth. Gainsborough. Reynolds. David. Constable. Turner. They will be our Storytellers for this series, unleashing through their art the astonishing potential found within “The Long 18th Century.”

·      This course is suitable for everyone, first-timers to art history, and old hands.

·      Listen to all seven lectures to get the most of the period. Or you are welcome to join any of the seven talks independently.

·      Catch-up recordings are available to ticket-holders.

·      You are able to choose the option of gifting the series, or just one lecture, as you purchase your ticket.