Our spring study day tour will take in three sites which show the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
Our Guide is Evelyn Silber who is a former Chair and current Vice Chair of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society and a former Director of the Hunterian. She is also an accredited Arts Society lecturer. Evelyn will accompany us throughout the day so will 
be on hand to answer any questions.

Booking form here

Study Day: Stonehenge.

From 10:30 - 3:30 at the Royal Northern & Clyde Yacht Club

Please click here to for more details and to register for the event.

Plenty of spaces left!

Kirkcudbright Galleries - in person and online lecture, 2 - 4pm

£8 in person; £5 online;  

This day of lectures charts the extraordinary career of Sergei Diaghilev from his student days in St. Petersburg to his life in Paris, where he became an impresario of genius who changed the art of ballet for ever.

The three lectures will cover: the Silver Age of Russian Culture in Moscow and St. Petersburg 1890-1905; the Firebird: Diaghilev’s Export of Russian Culture to Paris, 1906-1914; and the Ballet Russes and the Creation of Modern Dance, 1915-1929

Further details and booking form can be found under the Our Society/Documents tab

Clare Blatherwick is an independent jewellery consultant based in Scotland with twenty years of experience, ten of which she spent as head of jewellery for Bonhams Scotland, travelling internationally searching for jewels for auctioning. She has a keen interest in the historical aspect of jewellery, she is also a member of the Society of Jewellery

A booking form is in the document library

The compelling story of over 5,000 years of Scottish art, told by Lachlan Goudie, renowned contemporary Scottish artist, broadcaster and presenter of BBC Four's 'The Story of Scottish Art'.

NOTE This is a Tuesday lecture and Afternoon Tea, 2-4pm, Golden Lion Hotel BOOKING ESSENTIAL

Lecture 1: Originating in the dramatic Adirondack mountains of Upstate New York, the Hudson winds its way south to end alongside the skyscrapers of Manhattan. For much of the 19th century, it was a prime source of inspiration for artists who sought to associate the unspoilt grandeur and vast potential of these recently claimed lands with the hopes and aspirations of a new nation. The lecture focuses particularly on the work of English born Thomas Cole, who founded the movement, and later followers Frederic Edwin Church and Albert Bierstadt, who took the style beyond the Hudson to the mighty Rocky mountains, the volcanoes of the Andes and the icebergs of the Arctic. 

Lecture 2: Winslow Homer trained originally as a newspaper illustrator, imbuing his style with a distinctive, graphic clarity designed to make an immediate impact. His approach to watercolour, distinguished by its glowing colours and faultless technique, combined with his interest in both natural and social subject matter, makes his work especially attractive; best known for his dramatic and moody seascapes, through his careful and moving studies of individuals such as farmworkers and teachers in his homelands of New England he also presents us with a fascinating and at times nostalgic portrait of the heart of America at a time of rapid expansion and change.

Lecture 3: Few artists can match the achievements of John Singer Sargent who trained in Paris and spent much of his life depicting the world of the belle époque, from leisurely days on the Grand canal, to the society women of New York. His style is uniquely his own, impressionistic and realistic at once, flamboyant and spontaneous with a bravura and exactitude reminiscent of Velázquez and Van Dyck.

Barbara Askew is a Historian, Blue Badge guide, lectures on Royalty and Windsor Castle

The booking form is in the Documents store

Medical Art from Pox and Pestilence to Medical Gold

A CARPET RIDE TO KHIVA – EXPLORING THE REVIVAL OF 15TH CENTURY TIMURID CARPET DESIGNS FROM PERSIAN ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS

This is a narrative approach to the revival of 15th century carpets in Khiva, a desert oasis in Uzbekistan. Illuminations on vellum – containing the only surviving representations of textiles from this era – flourished, despite the Islamic prohibition on representative art – and are all we had left of Timurid Carpets until Chris Alexander’s workshop began to weave them to life again.  The lecture will examine the traditional role of carpet weaving and embroidery in the social lives of Central Asian women and how social and political influences led to the decline of textile production. How do the constraints of gender-inequality, corruption and the sourcing of natural dyes from neighbouring Afghanistan continue to challenge attempts at reviving the rich textile heritage of Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand?

HOW TO GET FROM A YAK - ADVENTURES IN CENTRAL ASIAN NOMADIC TEXTILES 

Houses made from wool that warm in the depths of winter, carpets that tell stories, woven bands that appease ancestors, embroideries that ward off evil, and kilims that store kitchenware, with everything ready to be packed and carried on yak, or camel at a moment’s notice; the little-known nomadic textile cultures of the Kyrgyz, Turkoman and Karakalpak are explored in this lecture, along with the rise and fall of nomadism and where nomadism fits within the modern world. Chris also shares from his own experience of working with nomadic yak herders in the High Pamirs for three years.

Peter Medhurst’s work as singer, pianist and lecturer-recitalist has taken him all over the world, and in the last few years he has toured New Zealand, Australia (twice) and South Africa (four times), and made frequent tours in Europe, giving performances in Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna, Salzburg, Brussels, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Paris and Spain.  Closer to home, he has presented events at the Barbican, St John’s Smith Square, and the Royal Festival Hall on The Beethoven String Quartets, Mozart Operas, Vermeer’s Music Lesson, The Twelve Days of Christmas, The Golden Age of Vienna, and 18th Century Venetian Art and Music.  He has also directed presentations at the Wallace Collection, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and the V&A, linking the visual arts with the world of 17th & 18th century music making.

He is a familiar face to audiences of music societies, regional theatres and British festivals (Henley, Isle of Man, Rye, Amersham, Stevenage, Chichester, Leith Hill, The Three Choirs etc) as well as to those of arts based organisations such as The Art Fund, The National Trust and the Arts Society (formally known as NADFAS).  On the radio, his appearances have included Classic FM’s Susanna Simons’ Show, Radio 3’s In Tune, Radio 4’s Arts Programme, and Midweek with Libby Purves.  

Peter Medhurst was born of German and English parents, and did his musical training at the Royal College of Music where he studied singing with Redvers Llewellyn and Edgar Evans, organ with Richard Popplewell, composition with Justin Connolly and music history with Else Mayer-Lismann, Christopher Grier and Joseph Horowitz.  In 1978, a scholarship from the Austrian government gave him the opportunity to have coaching with the accompanist Erik Werba at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.  On his return to England he took harpsichord lessons with Ruth Dyson, who became his accompanist and fellow keyboard duettist in a professional partnership that lasted until her death nearly 20 years later.

Over the years Peter Medhurst has lectured for the universities of Kent and Surrey, directed a wide range of choirs, vocal ensembles and instrumental groups, and adjudicated and given masterclasses for the British Federation of Music Festivals.

Music lovers regard JS Bach as the greatest of early 18th century composers.  In fact, he is so important in the history of music that we close down the Baroque period with his death in 1750.

However, Bach is also one of the most challenging of composers and rarely reveals the subtleties of his music on first or second hearing, causing some of his listeners to feel distanced from many of the finer moments in his output.

This study day goes beneath the surface of Bach’s music to decode some of his musical symbolism to reveal some of his working methods and to highlight some of his aesthetic goals.

10.00   Coffee can be purchased at Henderson’s

11.00   Lecture 1: A general introduction to the life and music of Bach through the one

surviving authentic portrait of the composer. This includes a look at his position in Western music and his impact on later generations, and a brief study of his publishing history.

12.00   Lecture 2: An exploration of Bach’s musical language, to include examples from instrumental works such as the Brandenburg Concertos and the Goldberg Variations.

1.00     Buffet Lunch.  Wine can be purchased from Henderson’s.

2.00     Lecture 3 will focus on Bach’s great legacy to the world of music and will discuss his influence on Mozart, Beethoven, Reger and Stravinsky.

Eveline Eaton is a freelance lecturer, tour guide, Chairman Board of Trustees of the Dresden Trust

Area Event planned for 2019 -2020

Visit to the ‘Wild and Majestic: Romantic Visions of Scotland’ exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland 

Study Day

Nicholas & Alexander / The Romanovs - Tyrants & Martyrs of Imperial Russia

Douglas Skeggs

The Lesser Albert Hall, Stirling

As we approach the centenary of the ending of the First World War, a study day on two of the most important people involved in the tragic events that befell the Russian nation during a turbulent period in its history is most fitting. Douglas Skeggs will bring his accustomed knowledge and enthusiasm to lead us through this fascinating time. 10.00 Coffee can be purchased at Henderson’s

11.00 First Lecture : "The Blasphemimg Bear" - The Life of Peter the Great

12.05 Second Lecture : "The New Byzantium" - Russia at the time of Catherine the Great 

1.00 Light lunch in the Lesser Albert Hall

2.00 Third Lecture : "The Last Romanovs" - The Life and Death of Nicholas and Alexandra

Cost, inclusive of lunch - £37 per person. Wine available to buy.

An Application form is available under Our Society/ Documents

By the mid 1880's American Impressionism had become an important art form in the U.S., inspired by, but not imitating the French Prototype. It embraced many superb artists such as Childe Hassam, Theodore Robinson and John Henry Twachtman who managed to successfully blend their academic training with the vitality of Impressionism encountered on their European travels. They produced paintings which conveyed dynamism of the new country and expanding cities, especially New York.

Popular until the 1920's, by the early 20th century, the style had been supplanted in status by the new urban realists. This visually exciting special interest day seeks to redress that situation.

10.00 Coffee can be purchased at Henderson's
11.00 Americans in Paris
12.05 The Impressionists return to America.
1.00 approx. Light lunch in Lesser Albert Hall.
2.00 approx. The Impressionists in New York.

COST: inclusive of lunch - £37 per person. Wine will be available to purchase. A Booking form for this event can be found on this website under Our Society/Documents

*Study Day, The  Lesser  Albert  Hall,  Stirling   29th September  2016, 11:00 - 16:00, lunch 13:00 - 14:00.
The fantastic  worlds  peopled  by  devils  that  the  Early  Netherlandish painter  Hieronymus ( or  Jheronimus )  Bosch (died  1516)  created  have  often  been  “explained”  as  the  work  of  a  visionary,  heretic or  even  hallucinating  madman. The  three  lectures  will  enable  us  to  gain  a  better  understanding  of  this  intriguing  late-mediaeval  artist.

*For application details please press the 'About Us' button on this web site, click on 'Documents and open 'Study  Day  28 09 16  Flyer  Version  3-4​'.  

Stretching  from  North  Africa  to  the  Middle  East  and  beyond,  Islam  has  been  a  major  religion  for  a  millennium  and  a half. Today  Sarah  Searight, historian  and  specialist  in  the  Middle  East,  will  lead  us  through  this  fascinating  and  elegant  world.

Topics include: The  Foundation  and  Development  of  Islam, Visions  of Paradise, the Great  Mosque of  Damascus, the  Alhambra  Palace and Suleyman  the  Magnificent  1520 – 1566

Click here for more information