Classicism in Victorian Painting Talk 1: Olympians - RA Painters

Martin Beek is at the Ashmolean Museum on Saturday 17 October, giving the first of two talks in his Classicism in Victorian Painting series. It's part of the museum's Love & Legacy events season, and this first session focuses on the emergence of Classicism in Victorian art and the role of the 'Olympian' Royal Academy painters.

Beek spends the hour on Frederic Leighton, Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Edward Poynter, the three figures who shaped High Art at the Academy. Their work absorbed the archaeological discoveries of the era and acted as a mirror of late Victorian society, while artists like Albert Moore and John Roddam Spencer Stanhope looked to the mythic past in their own explorations of ideal beauty. If you've ever wondered why so much Victorian painting looks back to Greece and Rome, this is where it's unpacked.

It's the first of two talks, so there's a second half to the story: the follow-up on G.F. Watts comes a week later on 24 October. If you're into the period, it's worth catching both.

The talk runs from 11am to 12pm in the Headley Lecture Theatre at the Ashmolean, and it's also available online via Zoom if you can't make it into the city. Tickets are £10.