Going round in circles: a problem for colour theory.

Since the early eighteenth century, painters have used the colour wheel, and related diagrams, to predict how colours will mix, to organise them in graduated sequences and contrasting pairs, and to arrange them in harmonious combinations. Artists, along with scientists and philosophers, have also used colour diagrams to set out the relations possible between colours, or the full variety colour can assume. But, although such diagrams are powerful heuristic and logical tools, they embody some significant misconceptions, and create a good deal of confusion, about colour. Drawing on arguments put forward by the philosopher, Wittgenstein, this paper will examine how they fudge or misrepresent the phenomenology, categorisation, and ‘space’ of colour – and the consequences of their doing so for art.

Open to all, free admission.

Thursday 23rd February 2017

5:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Research Forum Seminar Room, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London, WC2R 0RN

Dr Karen Lang has recently returned from Moscow where she delivered a lecture entitled 'The German Past and the Painter's Hope: Gerhard Richter at the Jewish Museum, Moscow'. The event took place on 26th January at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center.

Our photo (right) shows Karen with Liya Chechik, Director of Education at the Museum. Liya studied for her History of Art MA here in the Department just a few years ago.

Professor Tracy E. Cooper (Temple University, Philadelphia) to deliver lecture on The Last Dogaressa: Material Presence, Gender, and Elite Identity in Early Modern Venice.

Alumni, friends and former staff are gathering in Venice this weekend to celebrate 40 years of teaching History of Art in Venice. Special events include tours and talks led by current and former staff, a careers session led by our alumni for current students, and an evening reception for all at the Warwick Palazzo. Our alumni can see more about this event on the Facebook group page: Warwick History of Art Alumni.

What happens when fine artists engage with architecture and urban space? What forms can such engagements take? What political issues arise at the junctures between these disciplines?

During the modern period, when artists and critics have often complained that fine art is overly remote from everyday life, one common way of overcoming this gap has been to draw on the greater social efficacy that architecture can seem to provide. However, in other instances artists have used their relatively autonomous position to criticise or interrupt the relationship between architecture, urbanisation and power.

This conference will explore these issues as they arise in practices spanning the period from the 1960s to the present, exploring intersections between art, architecture and urbanism both within and outside Europe and North America.

Organised by Bill Roberts, Teaching Fellow, History of Art.

Artists' Critical Interventions into Architecture and Urbanism,

History of Art Research Fellow Amanda Sciampacone will be convening an academic session in Edinburgh this Saturday. Air and the Visual seeks to investigate the relationship between air and representation, and to address issues of the visible in the invisible and the material in the immaterial. Find out MORE.

Medieval Art, Architecture and Archaeology: a day seminar in celebration of the work of Dr Richard K. Morris

Richard Morris (1943- 2015) lectured at the University of Warwick in the Department of History of Art for 27 years during which time he taught countless students and demonstrated his breadth of knowledge in architectural analysis. He is best known for his work on the Middle Ages and his creation of the unique 10,000 item strong mouldings archive. This conference will celebrate the work and contribution of Richard Morris through an exploration of topics, themes and places that were of particular relevance to his core interests by his contemporaries, those whom he taught and influenced and new scholars reassessing the architecture of the late Middle Ages. It will present new research with an aim of sparking fresh debate and, in line with Richard’s own greatest passion, to enable a wide range of scholars and students to participate in active and positive exchange.

This conference has been organised by

• The British Archaeological Association
• The Ancient Monuments Society
• The Courtauld Institute of Art

Saturday 20 February 2016 - 9:45 am - 6:00 pm

Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN. 

Professor Michael Hatt has co-organised an event about the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen and Britain, which will take place at the Danish Academy in Rome and the British School at Rome next week. The seminar, convened with Lene Østermark-Johansen from the University of Copenhagen and Margrethe Floryan from Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen, brings together scholars from Denmark, Britain, Italy and the United States.

Professor Michael Rosenthal will speak on 'Augustus Earle: Seeing Straight' at the Tate Britain conference Artist and Empire: New Dynamics which begins this week.

Tate Britain’s major conference marks the opening of the exhibition Artist and Empire. Scholars, curators and artists from around Britain and the world consider art created under the conditions of the British Empire, its aftermath, and its future in museum and gallery displays.