Study Day: Monet and Hokusai, rethinking the landscape

About this course

The course places landscape painting in a broad historical context, considering why artists have chosen it as a subject and how its visual structures have developed. Examples include works associated with Claude Lorrain, Guo Xi, Jacob van Ruisdael and John Constable. It then focuses on Hokusai’s late landscapes, including Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, and Monet’s relationship to Hokusai and Japanese art, with particular attention to his later waterlily paintings. Teaching combines illustrated lectures, discussion, question-and-answer sessions and one or two interpretive activities.

What you'll learn

• Identify several historical reasons for choosing landscape as an artistic subject.
• Explain Hokusai’s contribution to the development of landscape painting.
• Relate aspects of Monet’s landscape work to its historical context.

Is this course right for you?

The course is intended for learners at all levels who want to extend their knowledge of and appreciation for landscape painting. Participation involves following short written and spoken instructions, engaging with illustrated teaching and contributing to group discussion.

• Includes discussion and interpretive activities rather than lecture-only teaching.
• Requires engagement with hand-outs, demonstrations and health and safety information.

Before you go

• A notebook may be useful for taking notes.
• Hand-outs for further study are provided to learners attending the course, but the PowerPoint slides are not shared.
• Books from any reading list may be purchased separately.