This lecture will be on YouTube and the link to this lecture is being sent out direct to members shortly, but if you don’t receive the link please contact Carole Brownridge. 2021 Obviously due to problems planning during the 2020 lock down these lectures may be subject to change 16th March 2021 10:30 on line Felicity Herring A Journey to Egypt & the Holy Land with David Roberts In 1838 David Roberts, the son of an Edinburgh cobbler, travelled up the Nile as far as Abu Simbel then back to Cairo. He was the first western artist to record the great statues of Rameses II, the Temple of Amun and the statues of Amenhotep III. He then travelled from Cairo across the Sinai desert to the Holy Land. His paintings of Petra were the first that Europeans had seen of this wonder of the ancient world. He went on to Jerusalem, Nazareth, Tyre and Baalbec. David Roberts’s paintings of his epic journey influenced travellers for a generation. David Robert Aboo Simbel drawing 20th April 2021 10:30 on line David Phillips The Magic of Pattern From the Alhambra to William Morris, patterns can be gorgeous, yet pattern has often been dismissed as “mere ornament” in comparison with painting. We will discover what a mistaken view that is as we look at the ideas that inspired some of the great pattern inventors and traditions from around the world. We’ll see that whilst some glorious effects depend on very simple patterning procedures, others can be wonderfully clever, as we watch patterns evolving across the screen in beautiful animations. Honeysuckle printed fabric designed by William Morris. (Details from Linda Parry, William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement: A Sourcebook, 1989.) 18th May 2021 10:30 on line Jonathan Foyle Lincoln Cathedral – Building Mary’s Paradise During the thirteenth century, Lincoln Cathedral was amongst the greatest building projects in England and despite a series of disasters, from an earthquake to war and robbery, we have inherited a magnificent and relatively unscathed masterpiece of art and architecture. Through its sheer size and complexity, the cathedral’s beauty can be difficult to understand. But through writing the book Lincoln Cathedral: Biography of a Great Building the speaker offers a fresh and coherent analysis of the cathedral’s evolution. This talk shows how this wonderfully inventive structure embodied changing ideas about the Virgin Mary, the Queen of Paradise, to whom it was dedicated. Lincoln cathedral - west front by Thompson, A. Hamilton: “The Cathedral Churches of England” (1925) After the AGM 15th June 2021 Steven Desmond The Historic Gardens of the Italian Lakes There are many illustrious gardens on the shores of Lakes Como and Maggiore in the mountainous far north of Italy. Those included in this lecture include a 16th- century parterre and water staircase; a baroque garden in the middle of a lake; two gardens made by rival Napoleonic grandees; and a garden created by two Edwardian romantics as a theatre for sharing their love of art and nature. These achievements and others are set in a climate ideal for garden-making among some of the world’s noblest scenery, where Wordsworth, Liszt and Bellini found inspiration. It could work for you. Above: taliano: Villa Carlotta, il giardino con visto di lago by Shan Chen

Programme for 2020/21