Do you know your codpiece from your farthingale? Why did the ruff become so fashionable? How do we identify figures in narrative and religious art? This short course explores the fascinating world of costume in 16th century European painting. Explore the socio-political context behind portraiture, how fashion was employed to convey status, and the impact of developments in textiles and trade.

Study the art of the period from c.1750-1880 considering Romanticism and the Pre-Raphaelites. We look at ‘romantic’ landscape, the modern moral subject and the depiction of women. Explore the art of women artists who struggled to survive as artists in the tightly controlled world of the art academy where the woman was encouraged to be muse and model rather than creator and thinker.

Costume from the past rarely survives, except in the depiction of it in paintings. Explore 500 years of costume in European art across a range of subject matter and decode the socio-political contexts and cultural identities contained within the choice of dress.

Join us as Hettie Judah introduces the topic of ‘motherhood’ addressing the construction of motherhood as an ideal in visual culture, and the strategies through which women artists have subverted it. While the Madonna and Child is one of the great subjects of European art, we rarely see art about motherhood as a lived experience, in all its complexity. In her new book and exhibition, Hettie Judah’s Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood addresses this blind spot in art history, asserting the artist mother as an important – if rarely visible – cultural figure. As well as delving into the mother as an art historical subject Acts of Creation explores lived experience of motherhood, offering a complex account that engages with contemporary concerns about gender, caregiving and reproductive rights.