Activities

Recognising that a painting is by one artist rather than another can sometimes be like recognising the handwriting of someone you know well. It is an immediate and certain recognition, but you probably couldn’t put into words what exactly is so distinctive.
This three part course given by Chantal Brotherton-Ratcliffe will attempt to open our eyes more fully to the kinds of details which can tell us who a painting is by, and show us how to notice more fully and see more analytically. We will learn how to notice and decode the clues that a painting is offering us of where, when and by whom it is made.

Lecture 3 – The Sceptical Eye

It is vital for us to be able to tell the difference between something the artist himself put on his canvas, and something that was added – or removed – in the subsequent decades of the painting’s life. In this session, we will ask whether we are seeing what the artist produced, or whether time or other humans have altered it.
The final challenge is to distinguish between artist and copyist or forger. Determining the difference between copy and original is one of the most difficult areas of the art world. This is the ultimate test for the seeing eye!