Great Masters of Western Painting: Rembrandt, Turner, Monet and Van Gogh

This course will take place on Tuesdays, October 8-29, 1:00-3:00p.m. at the Mercer Public Library, with David Barnhill.

The Great Masters of Western Painting course will introduce students to a wide range of great paintings by four masters and highlight their stylistic development over time. Students will not only learn about these paintings, but become inspired by them and perceive the world in a deeper way.

1. Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669). We will examine the paintings by the Dutch Master from his youth to old age: history paintings, individual portraits, group portraits, landscapes, and self-portraits, including his radical free style of painting late in life that turned the critics and public away, leaving him to die in obscurity.
2. J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851).  Turner is Britain’s greatest and most complex painter, and his late paintings are considered a precursor to both Impressionism and Abstract Expressionism. We will discuss his early pictures in Britain, marine paintings, and history paintings, as well as pictures on contemporary subjects, then his depictions of the Alps and Venice, concluding with his late watercolors and radical visionary paintings. 
3. Claude Monet (1840-1926). The great master of Impressionism, his art evolved from realistic landscape painting, to his emphasis on the effects of light and color in our perception of nature (including his innovative series of subjects seen in different seasons and times of day), to the goal of representing the envelope or atmosphere of light, and finally to his largely abstract water lilies.
4. Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). Many of Vincent’s works are well known, but we will cover his early works with their subdued brown and gray palette, the explosion of colors in his works when he came to Paris, the flowering of his own style in the south of France, and the burst of creative energy in his last months before he committed suicide.

Requirements: The only requirement is an interest in art. There will be no printed materials and no homework.

Instructor: David Barnhill

Offline Registration: Download PDF Registration Form, complete and mail in with payment.

Registration Questions? Contact us or call (715) 862-2032 or (715) 476-2881.

Registration Issues/Troubleshooting: If you are registering with one email address for two or more people, please register each person individually (i.e. do not register all at once, but add students one at a time to checkout). If you continue to have difficulty or have another question, please contact us.

Cancellation Notice: Students are encouraged to sign up at least two weeks before the beginning of any Fe University course. Courses with less than 4 students 2 weeks before the start date may be cancelled at instructor/FeU discretion. If you’re interested in a class, please sign up early! Thank you.