PADFAS PROGRAMME 2019-2020
These illustrated lectures are delivered in English by leading European speakers, all experts in their fields.
All lectures start at 14:00 unless otherwise stated.
Lectures are held at:
Théâtre du Ranelagh
5 Rue des Vignes
75016 Paris
Reduced mobility entrance at 2 bis rue des Maronniers.
Metro: La Muette | RER C: Boulainvilliers | Bus: 52, 22
The lectures are followed by light refreshments to allow members and guests to meet and enjoy each other’s company.
Click on the lecturer’s name to see more information (if available)
Thursday 10th October 2019
14:00 DICKENS, LAWRENCE AND ZHIVAGO. DAVID LEAN’S ART OF CINEMA
Followed by drinks, then
16:00 Annual General Meeting
Cinematic images are modern art forms. In the ‘golden age’ of cinema – before the development of CGI technology – film-makers had to construct sets to represent landscapes, townscapes, and interiors. Sometimes they used paintings and photographs, sometimes they built scale models, sometimes they constructed full-size replicas. In each case, they created an art installation they then captured in celluloid images.
Drawing on new insights from the archaeology of cinema, this lecture will use the films of renowned British director David Lean to explore the art of cinema. How do the ‘artists’ – in this case formed of large collaborative teams (directors, screenwriters, production designers, costume designers, camera crews, fixers, etc) – choose locations, construct sets, dress actors, and, more generally, ‘imagine’ the world they seek to represent? How much is authentic, and how much preconception and prejudice? What are the influences on the way the cinema depicts the world?
Our lecturer Dr. Neil Faulkner was educated at King’s College Cambridge and Institute of Archaeology UCL. He works as lecturer, writer, archaeologist and occasional broadcaster. He is a Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, Editor of Military History Monthly, Director of Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project, Director of the Great Arab Revolt Project and author of The Decline and Fall of Roman Britain, Apocalypse, Hidden Treasure, Rome: Empire of the Eagles, and The Ancient Greek Olympics: a visitor’s guide. He is also the author of the forthcoming Lawrence of Arabia’s War.
Major TV appearances include Channel 4’s Time Team, BBC2’s Timewatch, Channel Five’s Boudica Revealed and Sky Atlantic’s The British.
Thursday 7th November 2019
SAINTS AND SINNERS: WOMEN IN THE MAURITSHUIS (THE HAGUE)
Women have played many different roles in art from Mary, mother of Jesus, perhaps the holiest of women, as portrayed by artists such as Rembrandt, to the brazen hussies depicted by Jan Steen. Using some of the masterpieces of the Mauritshuis the lecturer will explore not only the roles played by women but also introduce you to some of the artists and the kinds of works they produced and the styles they used. This lecture is fun as well as educational.
By Jane Choy
Jane E. Choy-Thurlow is a docent and enjoys giving lectures and tours at the Mauritshuis, Prince William V gallery and Huygens Museum Hofwijck in The Hague, The Netherlands. A few of the many exhibits in the Mauritshuis she has been part of are: the legendary Johannes Vermeer exhibit, Rembrandt by Himself and Holbein, Portraitist of the Renaissance.
An active member of The Arts Society, she is a founding member of DFAS of The Hague and has fulfilled committee positions including chairman and Mainland Europe Area Chairman and presently is Area Trainer and a New Societies committee member. She received her BSc from Salem State University, USA, her Med from Trinity College Dublin and continued art history studies at Leiden University.
In 2018 she was given the honour of Knight in the Order of Oranje Nassau by the Dutch King Willem Alexander of Orange for her knowledge and work in the field of the Arts esp. 15th to 17th century Dutch and Flemish art.
Thursday 5th December 2019
PLEASE NOTE THAT DUE TO TRANSPORT STRIKES THIS LECTURE HAS BEEN POSTPONED to 23rd APRIL 2020
THE SUBTLE SCIENCE AND EXACT ART OF COLOUR IN ENGLISH GARDEN DESIGN
Thursday 9th January 2020
THE SUBLIME IN ART AND TECHNOLOGY
Thanks to the works of two philosophers, Burke 1757 and Kant 1790, the “sublime” became the most fundamental aesthetic notion of the period (the end of the Enlightenment and the beginning of Romanticism) with an impact on artistic creation. Energy became the main motif of the aesthetics of the “sublime” and emphasised its links with the Industrial Revolution.
By Christian Monjou
Research professor at Oxford, former laureate of the Besse Foundation, Christian Monjou is a specialist in Anglo-Saxon civilisations. He was for a long time long Professor of Higher Chair in Khâgne at the Lycée Henri IV in Paris and lecturer at the École Normale Supérieure in the Rue d’Ulm.
Thursday 6th February 2020
THE ENGLISH COUNTRY CHURCH (PART 2)
FROM THE TUDORS TO THE PRESENT.
The Tudor era marked a radical departure in terms of usage and architecture, influenced by the European Reformation which insisted on the Bible and preaching. The Commonwealth interregnum (Oliver Cromwell) in the 17th century represented a new iconoclasm and the beginning of new non-conformity with its own architectural forms. The profound ecclesiastical changes of 19th century Victorian Britain have left a substantial legacy evident in gothic revival and liturgical transformation.
By the Rev’d Nicholas Henderson
A graduate of Selwyn College, Cambridge, Nicholas trained for the Anglican ministry at Ripon Hall, Oxford. Inspired by a period working on the staff of Coventry Cathedral he has gained a wide experience of international matters. He has lectured widely on international and historical issues and has a particular interest in the period of the English Reformation.
Thursday 5th March 2020
CAMBODIA: THE SACRED ART OF ANGKOR AND LIVING ARTS.
The 12th century temples of Angkor are the biggest religious monument in the world, a recreation of Hindu cosmos, covered in exquisite carvings. It highlights the brilliance of Khmer architecture and bas-reliefs of the Hindu epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata. The lecture concludes with contemporary Cambodia and the living arts, especially classical dance with performers re-enacting sacred dances in front of the temples.
Denise Heywood is an art historian, author, lecturer, photographer and journalist. She worked in Cambodia for three years in the 1990s and has been a scholar of Southeast Asian art ever since.
Thursday 2nd April 2020
THE MUSICAL WORLD OF JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750)
CANCELLED DUE TO CORONAVIRUS
Bach is so important in the history of music that we close down the Baroque period with his death in 1750. He is one of the most challenging of composers and rarely reveals the subtleties of his music on first or even second hearing. We shall go beneath the surface of Bach’s music to decode some of its symbolism and to highlight some of his aesthetic goals.
Peter Medhurst will also perform a selection of Bach’s arias and keyboard music.
Thursday 23rd April 2020
THE SUBTLE SCIENCE AND EXACT ART OF COLOUR IN ENGLISH GARDEN DESIGN
CANCELLED DUE TO CORONAVIRUS
In 1888 Gertrude Jekyll wrote a short but seminal article in The Garden in which she urged the readers to “remember that in a garden we are painting a picture”. As an accomplished watercolour artist, Miss Jekyll was familiar with the principles of using colours, but she felt that in gardens these principles “had been greatly neglected”. This talk looks at how to apply these principles in designing a border, but it also looks at the ways in which a border is different from a painting. However, it goes further than this and looks at how contemporary work of the likes of Turner, Monet, Rothko, Jackson Pollack, and Hockney evolved in parallel with ideas about what a garden or border should look like.
Since 1986 Timothy Walker has given 1,500 public lectures. This was originally part of his work as director of the Oxford University Botanic Garden from 1988 to 2014. Botanic gardens are often described as living museums, and garden curators lecture about them in the same way as museum curators talk about their collections. Since 2014 he has been a college lecturer and tutor at Somerville College Oxford. Gardens are often thought of a place where science and art meet on equal terms. Timothy Walker’s lectures investigate this relationship.
Thursday 7th May 2020
THE FORGOTTEN PAINTINGS OF THE ART WORLD KNOWN AS “SLEEPERS”. FAKE OR FORTUNE?
Professional restorers go about discovering hidden gems which have long since lost their dignity or fallen into anonymity. The research and examination of pictures is rich in details about the age of pigment, panels, canvasses and frames.
By Julia Korner
Julia Korner, LSIAD, is a specialist and lecturer in fine art conservation and restoration of paintings, sculptures and frames. She is also a valuer, passionate collector, advisor and curator of paintings and works of art.
Click here to see last session’s lectures.
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