Portrait of Jean Cocteau
Amedeo Modigliani, 1916
Princeton University Art Museum
D'où venons-nous ? Que sommes-nous ? Où allons-nous ?
Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?,
Paul Gauguin, 1898 - Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
LIST OF LECTURES THAT ARE GIVEN TO ASSOCIATIONS, GROUPS, THE PUBLIC AT LARGE, IN MUSEUMS & UNIVERSITIES
A NEWSPAPER CRITIQUE ABOUT ONE ONE MY LECTURES.
Stories and visuals from the Ballet Russes...as shared by an expert
By Carrie Seidman, Sarasota Herald-Tribune
-Thursday, October 31, 2013
I know I was late getting the word out, but those of you who missed the first of Jean Renoux's lectures about the Ballet Russes at the Sarasota Ballet Wednesday night had better mark your calendars now for the second, Nov. 6.
Renoux, an interior designer, art historian, former assistant to filmmaker Louis Malle and Sarasota resident for more than 30 years, gave a fascinating talk about the famed turn-of-the-century ballet troupe led by Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev. The nearly two-hour lecture, in the Sarasota Ballet's intimate third-floor screening room at the FSU Center for Performing Arts, was illustrated with projected photos and (in some cases), rare film footage of some of the company's most famous ballets, composers, designers and dancers.
In the first of two scheduled lectures, Renoux, an entertaining speaker who maintains the accent of his native France, covered the years from Diaghilev's birth in 1872, through his founding of the company in 1909 and onward to the debut of "Rite of Spring" in 1915, the scandalous ballet composed by Igor Stravinsky and choreographed by dancer Vaslav Nijinsky that rocked the ballet world with its unusual score and movement vocabulary. Attendees were treated to excerpts -- some with the original casts, others reprisals -- from many renowned ballets, including "Giselle," "La Sylphide," "Le Spectre de la Rose," "Afternoon of a Faun" and "Rite of Spring."
Renoux will return at 6 p.m. Nov. 6 to fill in the remaining year's of the troupe's existence through 1929, and its lingering effect on the development of the ballet world.
ALL LONG lectures can be presented in shorter versions of one hour and thirty minutes.
ARCHITECTURE (A), DECOR/FURNITURE (ID) BIOGRAPHIES (B)
​A1- A. H. ART GREEK ARCHITECTURE
The impact of an architecture that influenced, Rome, modern Europe and the US architecture.
3 to 5 hour lecture
A2- A. H. ROMAN ARCHITECTURE
The history of Roman architecture and art and its influence on the Renaissance architecture.
3 to 5 hour lecture
A3- A. H. ART ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE
3 to 5 hour lecture
A4- A. H. ART GOTHIC CATHEDRALS
A style born in France: Saint-Denis Basilica, Notre Dame and the Sainte Chapelle of Paris, Notre Dame of Chartres, Laon, Reims, Beauvais, Sens, Amiens, Rouen, Bourges, Albi: the amazing feast of architecture, the transcendental beauty of the stained glass windows, the political and human impact of a construction process that would sometimes take more than a century to see its accomplishment. We will compare the changes, which occurred with the discovery of the flying buttresses against the Romanesque type of architecture.
1hr:45mn to 5 hour lecture
A5- A. H. ART. ID THE RENAISSANCE
The transformation from medieval thinking to new more open-minded philosophies that saw an incredible transformation in architecture, furniture and decor but also in literature, philosophy, poetry, religion and music. From Italy the influence will penetrate all parts of Europe.
3 to 18 hour lecture/course
A6- A. H. ART. ID THE CASTLES OF THE LOIRE VALLEY
From Angers to Chambord, through Azay, Usse, Villandry, Chenonceau and lesser-known castles. A look at the birth of the French Renaissance, its architecture and decor. We will talk about the women who designed or owned some of the most beautiful castles, Leonardo da Vinci's last years of his life in Clos Luce and the changes in architecture, decor. It is also the human side of history, from the time of feudal Lords in the year 1,000 to the first absolute French king, Francis I, in the 16th Century.
1hr:45mn to 5 hour lecture/course
A7- A. H. ART. ID PALLADIO
A wide review of his architecture and his influence on British and US architecture, as well as an understanding of the period in which he lived and worked. Also how badly copied, just look at the pseudo Palladian houses in Florida, by people who could not read his Four Books of Architecture in which gives practically all the recipes
3 to 6 hour lecture
A8- A. H. ART. ID BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY
AND EUROPE
Born from the Mannerist style, in the late 16th century it will survive the Rococo era in many parts of Europe until the beginning of the 19th Century. It is a style full of movement, opposite to the Renaissance style. The Roman Catholic Church, in trying to counter the Protestant Reformation, considered that the arts should communicate religious themes in an over played emotional form. Contrary to the Renaissance style in art or architecture, the Baroque style is overly opulent.
From St Peter Basilica to Versailles and the grand castles (in Germany: Ludwigsburg Palace, Perterhoff in Russia, and churches of Europe, we will visit with some of the greatest architects and artists of the time. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Francesco Borromini, Christopher Wren, Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor.
Some of the architects, artists and buildings we will discuss:
Michelangelo, Giacomo della Porta, Carlo Maderno: St Peter's Basilica, the Vatican; Francesco Laparelli, Gerolamo Cassar: Urbanistic complex of the city of Valletta, Malta; Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, Giacomo della Porta: Church of the Gesu, Rome; Carlo Maderno: Santa Susanna, Rome; Giovanni de Galliano Pieroni, Andrea Spezza, Niccolo Sebregondi: Wallenstein Palace, Prague, Czech Republic; Jules Hardouin Mansart, Louis Le Vau, André Le Nôtre, Château de Versailles, Versailles, France; Francesco Borromini: San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Rome, Italy; Guarino Guarini: San Lorenzo (Turin), Turin, Italy; Christopher Wren: St Paul's Cathedral, London, England; Augustyn Wincenty Locci, Giovanni Spazzio: Wilanów Palace, Warsaw, Poland; Jules Hardouin Mansart: Les Invalides, Paris, France; Jean Baptiste Mathey, Giovanni Domenico Orsi Troja Palace Prague, Czech Republic; Jakob Prandtauer: Stift Melk, Austria; Matteo Alberti: Schloss Bensberg, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany; Christoph Dientzenhofer, Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer: Saint Nicholas Church (Malá Strana), Prague, Czech Republic;
Sir John Vanbrugh: Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, England; Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann: ZwingerPalace, Dresden, Germany; João Frederico Ludovice: Mafra Palace, Mafra, Portugal; Teodoro Ardemans, Filippo Juvarra: Palace of La Granja, Segovia, Spain; Bartolomeo Rastrelli: Peterhof Palace, St Petersburg, Russia;
Nicola Salvi: Trevi Fountain, Rome, Italy; Filippo Juvarra, Juan Bautista Sacchetti, Ventura Rodríguez: Royal Palace, Madrid, Spain, etc....
3 to 18 hour lecture
A9- A H ART ID VERSAILLES
The Sun King and the daily life at the court, the mistresses, the architects and the artists who created the decor of one of the largest castles in the worlds. We will talk about the political and economical reasons behind the construction of the castle. We will see the evolution of different architectural and decorative styles.
We will look at Vaux le Vicomte, a marvelous castle built in 5 years by 18,000 workers and designed by the same architect, gardener and decorator who will later create Versailles.
1hr:45mn or 3 hour or 6 hour lecture
A10- A. H. ART. ID THE GARDENS OF VILLANDRY
AND VERSAILLES
Villandry is probably the most perfect example of a Renaissance garden based on monastic Medieval decorated kitchen gardens. In this 32,000 sq. feet garden, the precise decor, the colors and the forms are created strictly with vegetables and fruit trees representing 120,000 plants a year. Villandry also has The Love Garden" a 13,000 sq. feet geometric garden "a la française" containing tall boxwood and yew trimmed into hedges surrounding carpets of flowers (25,000 plants) symbolic designs associated with love.
Versailles is a huge park with several gardens each with its own style, its own story. From French to English gardens, it is a beautiful walk in the mist of hundreds of statues and some of the most beautiful fountains ever designed.
1hr:45mn or 3 hr or 6 hr lecture (Monet at Giverny can be added)
11- A. H. ART. ID ROCAILLE, LOUIS XV, ROCOCO ARCHITECTURE
AND DECOR IN FRANCE AND EUROPE
Rocaille is one of the more prominent aspects of the Rococo style of architecture and decoration that developed in France during the reign of King Louis XV (1715–74). The Rocaille style was born from the Baroque in which it took it fluid and complex shapes and new interest in nature and natural sciences. In French, rocaille means “rubble,” or “pebbles,” or "landscape of rocks" and style rocaille is synonymous with Rococo. Solitude Palace in Stuttgart; Chinese Palace in Oranienbaum; the Bavarian church in Wies; Sanssouci in Potsdam;, Augustusburg and Falkenlust Palaces in Brüh; Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin; Chinese House in Potsdam and some portion of the Château de Versailles are great examples of decor and architecture of the period.
Antoine Gaudreau, Charles Cressent, Jean-Pierre Latz, François Oeben, Bernard II van Risamburgh Thomas Chippendale, Thomas Johnson François de Cuvilliés, Nicholas Pineau, Bartolomeo Rastrelli Juste-Aurèle Meissonier, the marchands-merciers and their leader Simon-Philippe Poirier are some of the great cabinet makers/ decorators we will talk about.
3 to 10 hour lecture
12- A. H. ART. ID NEO-CLASSICISM IN ARCHITECTURE
AND DECOR IN EUROPE
The movement was both a reaction against the complexity and opulence of the Rococo and the renewal of interest in classical architecture after the re-discovery of Pompeii. A non negligible influence was the architecture of Andrea Palladio which started to be more known around Europe. The style will give birth to many different styles like the Adam Style, Empire Style, Federal, American Empire, and even Nazi and Stalinist architecture. Some of its elements can be found even in Art Deco architecture or furniture.
3 to 6 hour lecture
13- A. H. ART. ID The LOUVRE MUSEUM
240 to 500 slides or so to tell of eight hundred years in the history of the Louvre from Philippe-Auguste small fortress to I. M. Pei's glass pyramid. More than ten architects designed all the buildings that created perhaps the largest palace in the world. Amazingly enough, there is a certain unity of style although the buildings still standing were designed starting in the early 1400s, and then saw many different epochs: Francis I, Henri II, Henri IV (French Renaissance), Louis XIII (The time of Mansart), Louis XIV (Baroque era, Le Vaux future architect of Versailles), Napoleon I, Napoleon III up to the Pyramid by I.M. Pei as well as some of his inside decorative and space planning work.
1hr:45mn or 3 hour or 6 hour lecture
A14- A. ID FRENCH COUNTRY FURNITURE
A grand panorama of the "country French" styles. The roots of more than 48 different styles coming from at least 12 different main regions.
3 hour, 6 hour, or 10hr CEU HSW for Architects and Interior
Designers OR several chapters for 20 hours of lecture.
A15- A. ID. A SHORT HISTORY IN IMAGE OF FRENCH FURNITURE
AND DECOR
It brings out the reasons why some pieces of furniture did appear and how people lived through the centuries getting to "modernize" their surroundings when foreign influences would bring new ideas.
3 hour lecture or 2 time 1hr:30mn
16- A. ID APPRECIATING FRENCH FURNITURE, DECOR AND ARCHITECTURE
From the medieval era to the modernist period of the late 1930, a wide survey of how people lived with furniture and the connection between history, architecture and decor.
20hr CEU HSW for Architects and Interior Designers.
This can also be presented in several chapters totaling as much as 30
hours of lectures.
17- A. ART. ID ART NOUVEAU
From Brussels to Nancy to Paris, the birth of a movement using nature as its inspiration.
3 to 6 hr lecture
18- A. ART. ID THE BIRTH OF MODERN AND BEYOND
An Overview of Western Architecture, Painting and Sculpture from 1850 to 1980: This course will revive and enhance the professional's knowledge of Western 19th and 20th Century architecture, painting and sculpture.
Beginning with the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1800's, and progressing past World War II to the 1980's, the course will cover prominent movements including the Barbizon School, Pre-Raphealites, Impressionism, Nabism, Fauvism, Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, Bauhaus, International Style and continue on to Neo-Abstraction. We will also cover the influential artists, architects and works of each period. This course is supplemented by over 1000 slides and will discuss not only the art and architecture but the Political and socio-economic factors that influenced the key movements Industrial Revolution, The Russian Revolution, Socialism, World Wars l and Il.
Two-time Ten Hour lecture (can be CEU for Interior Designers and Architects).
19- A. H. ART. ID ART NOUVEAU IN CENTRAL AND
EASTERN EUROPE
("New Art" in French) Based on precepts akin to William Morris' Arts and Crafts movement in England, the attempt was to eradicate the dividing line between art and audience. Everything could and should be art: Burne-Jones designed wallpaper, Hector Guimard designed metro stations, and Mucha designed champagne advertising and stage sets. Each country had its own name for the new approach and artists of incredible skill and vision flocked to the movement. It was a movement that had a very strong influence essentially in the middle of Europe. Some of the greatest example of architecture, decor and art can be found in Austria, the Czech Republic or Hungary.
3 to 6 hour lecture
20- A. ART. ID ANTONI GAUDI
Gaudí was an architect with an amazing sense for geometry and volumes, and one of the most imaginative of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He generally didn't draw but preferred to use scale models to convey his ideas to the builders. He was often improvising but Gifted with a strong intuition and creative capacity, Gaudí conceived his buildings in a global manner, taking into account both structural and decorative functions.
1hr:45mn or 3hr
21- A. ART. ID THE VIENNA SECESSION
The Vienna Secession was founded on 3 April 1897 by a group of artists who had left the Association of Austrian Artists, because they were unhappy by its control on what they needed to produce as well as the commission they had to pay to the association on every sale of their works. They were painters, sculptors, and architects. Their first president was Gustav Klimt. Some of the most important were Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Max Kurzweil. Although Otto Wagner is recognized as part of the Vienna Secession he was not a founding member. The artists objected to the prevailing conservatism of the Vienna Künstlerhaus.
Because of differences of opinion, some artist left the movement and went on to create in 1903 the Wiener Werkstätte (engl.: Vienna Workshop). Their aim was to create a movement of architects, artists and designers who would create art that would be accessible to everyone. One of their most famous accomplishments is the Stoclet Palace in Brussels.
1hr:45mn or 3hr
22- A. ART. ID OTTO WAGNER
Wagner, an Austrian architect born in 1841 started designing buildings in 1864, following the ideas of a contemporary movement, Architectural Realism, that wanted to rely less on historical forms or elements. Then in early1890s, he designed several Jugendstil (Art Nouveau in Austria) buildings. He was very interested in urban planning and designed a new city plan for Vienna. Although his plan was not developed, his urban rail network, the Stadtbahn, was built. In its evolution, his style incorporated the use of new materials and new forms as well as quasi-symbolic references to reflect the fact that society was changing. He wrote that "new human tasks and views called for a change or reconstitution of existing forms". In 1897, he joined the Vienna Secession shortly after it was founded.
1hr:45mn or 2:5hr
23- A. ART. ID The ORSAY MUSEUM
How an obsolete train station was saved from demolition to become one of the most beautiful museums in the world. You will discover the art of the late 19th century and beginning of the 20th, which includes a great collection of Impressionists. We will also look at lesser know art like the "style nouille" (pasta style) and the "style pompier" (firemen style), some very unusual and beautiful furniture and a few of the major sculptors of the century.
1hr:45mn or 3 hour or 6 hour lecture
24- A. ART. ID CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH
Born in 1868, he was a Scottish architect, furniture designer, watercolorist and sculptor. He was part of the Arts and Crafts movement and also Art Nouveau. He talent was considerable and soon he had created his own style that no longer could be incorporated in any other mainstream movements. His influence on European architecture was important.
3 to 5 hour lecture
25- A. ID FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
Frank Lloyd Wright, born 1867, was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator. He designed more than 1,000 projects. More than 500 of them were completed works. Wright promoted organic architecture after learning of the concept while working with an important American Architect, Louis Sullivan (Fallingwater, a disaster of a house). He made himself a leader of the Prairie School movement of architecture (Robie House, Westcott House, Darwin D. Martin House) although it was not entirely his ideas. They were mostly those of Marion Mahoney, his first employee, the second women graduating from MIT as an architect, the first women with a license to practice architecture in Illinoi, while FLW did not obtain one until he was in his sixties. He developed the concept of the Usonian home (Rosenbaum House). His work included many different building types, (offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, and museums) but also included interior elements of many of the of his buildings original and innovative examples of Wright also often designed, such as the furniture and stained glass.
3 or 6 hr course
26- A. ART. ID ART DECO ARCHITECTURE, FURNITURE
AND DECOR IN EUROPE
Although a style born in France around 1910 which lasted until the 1925 "Exposition des Arts Decoratifs" in Paris giving the style its name, recognized its culminating point and saw its demise, Art Deco influenced the European architecture landscape as can be seen in cities all over Europe from Vienna to Prague to Budapest, to Brussels to Amsterdam, Berlin and more.
3 to 10 hour lecture
27- A. ART. ID ART DECO FURNITURE AND DECOR IN FRANCE
An overview of a style born in France around 1910 which lasted until the 1925 "Exposition des Arts Decoratifs" in Paris giving the style its name, recognized its culminating point and saw its demise, all at the same time.
1hr:45mn or 3 hour or 6 hour lecture
28- A. ART. ID FALLINGWATER
how not to design a house according to your client's desires
1hr:45mn
29- A. ART. ID LE CORBUSIER
The ideas and the work of the great Swiss architect and the people who worked with him.
3 to 5 hour lecture
30- A. ART. ID EILEEN GREY
1hr:45mn to 5 hour lecture
31- A. ART. ID THE BAUHAUS
Weimar, Dessau, Berlin
1:45mn 3 hour 6 hour
32- A. ID THE BAUHAUS IN THE US
The influence of this great German movement on our contemporary architecture.
1:45 3 hr
34- A. H. ART. ID COMMUNIST ARCHITECTURE
An overview of architecture in Central and Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Romania) that can at times be considered as de-humanizing and at best rather simplistic and minimalist, with foray into the grandiose and over powering. We will also see how some architects were able to create rather original architecture despite the stringent rules and how politics and fears played an instrumental role in a seemingly boring style.
1.5 to 3 hour
35- A. ID THE SARASOTA SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
MOVEMENT
4 hour lecture
36- A. ART. ID MOSTLY MODERN
The major projects of the late 20th century in Paris: The Pompidou Center, the Pyramid and the Grand Louvre, the Arch of the Defense, the Museum of Orsay, the Center for the Arabic World, the Bastille Opera, the Museum of Science and Technique, The Park of la Villette, the National Conservatory of Music, the National Library, the American Center in Paris, amazing low income housings by Ricardo Bofill and Paolo Nunez and more.
An interesting look at some of the boldest and most controversial architecture of today and a Paris that most tourist miss.
1hr:45mn or 3 hour or 6 hour lecture
37- A. ART. ID THE POMPIDOU CENTER
1hr:45mn
38- A. ART. ID HUNDERTWASSER
He was one of the most well know contemporary Austrian artist but also a very interesting and controversial architect with many "green" ideas ahead of his time.
1hr:45mn
39- A. ART. ID IMRE MAKOVECZ
One of the greatest Hungarian architect (he died in 2012), and one of the greatest organic architects, he used hidden symbolism in his architecture. someone I had the pleasure to met and spend time with him talking about his vision.
1hr:45mn
40- A. ID NEUTRA AND SCHINDLER
Two Austrian architects who will have an enormous influence on modern architecture in the US.
3hr
41- A. ID JEAN PROUVE
A metal worker, self-taught architect, engineer and designer who transferred manufacturing technologies from industry to architecture with style and aesthetic qualities. He was involved in architectural design, structural design, industrial design and furniture design.
1hr:45mn
42- A. ID PAOLO SOLERI AND ARCOSANTI
An experiment that was ahead of its time? Where is the failure? What ideas could still be taken from Soleri's philosophy? Other architects' similar projects.
2 hr
43- A. ID BUILDING & DESIGNING THE HEALTHY HOME
Two-time 10 Hour CEU HSW for Interior Designers and
Architects.Can be adapted to the general public, 2-hour lecture
44- A. ID THE ALMOST PERFECT BUILDING
Two-time 8 hour CEU HSW for Interior Designers & Architects.
46- A AUTOCLAVE AERATED CONCRETE
An 80-year old technology creating blocks or panels for commercial or residential construction. It is a superior material with a 4-hr fire rating, non toxic, non pollutant, with a high insulation rating, a high sound proofing rating, great strength, non conductive to mold proliferation, impervious to termite, 5 time lighter than normal concrete blocks, easy to work with hand tools.
1-hr CEU for architects
47- A. THE SKYSCRAPERS
An America invention? How it changed the configuration of the urban landscape. The advances in technology. Defying the impossible.
3 to 6 hr course
48- A. URBAN SPRAWL
Why we dehumanise housing by creating sprawl and what are the solutions and can we continue to go at the rate we do for very long.
3 to 5 hr course
49- A. ART. ID ORGANIC ARCHITECTURE
Organic architecture is not new. We can find examples of it from Celtic times to Art Nouveau, to Arts and Crafts, to the work of Anton Alberts, Laurie Baker, Claude Bragdon, Nari Gandhi, Antoni Gaudi, Bruce Goff, Neville Gruzman, Hugo Häring, Hundertwasser, Kendrick Bangs Kellogg, John Lautner, Le Corbusier, Imre Makovecz, Hans Scharoun, Gustav Stickley. Louis Sullivan, Rudolf Steiner,Frank Lloyd Wright, Bruno Zevi. Organic architecture is gentler to the environment, gentler on our sense of aesthetics because softer and in some ways with a sense of humor. It is based on natural or curvilinear forms rather than the straight-line concept of modernism. "So here I stand before you preaching organic architecture: declaring organic architecture to be the modern ideal and the teaching so much needed if we are to see the whole of life, and to now serve the whole of life, holding no 'traditions' essential to the great TRADITION. Nor cherishing any preconceived form fixing upon us either past, present or future, but instead exalting the simple laws of common sense or of super-sense if you prefer determining form by way of the nature of materials..." Frank Lloyd Wright, An Organic Architecture, 1939 in his circumvoluted way of expressing himself.
3 to 18 hour lecture
50-A.H.ART PRAGUE
A view of some of the most interesting buildings in the city and a panorama of amazing facades, plus some of the outstanding free standing sculptures seen all along the city.
1hr:45mn
51-A.H.ART ARCHITECTURE AS ART
Great building from all over the world that could pretend to also be works of art. Although often, it could be debatable.
1:45mn
​
52-A.ART COLUMBUS, INDIANA, AMAZING 6TH BEST
US ARCHITECTURAL CITY
With over a hundred buildings designed by more than 55 renowned architects, this small, clean, charming Midwest city is a museum of great architecture from 1942 to the present.
1:45mn
Middle: Pablo Picasso - Guernica -1937 - Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid, Spain
Bottom Left: Mark Rothko - Orange & Tan 1954 - NGA, DC
Bottom Right: Bison - Lower Magdalenian +/-16,000 years old políchrome
Cave of Altimira - Santillana del Mar in Cantabria, Spain
Top Right: Apollo & Daphne - Gian Lorenzo Bernini,1625 - Galleria Borghese- Rome
Top Left: Venus od Willendorf - +/- 25,000 BC - Willendorf, Austria
ART HISTORY (ART)
52- ART CAVE ART IN DORDOGNE AND THE PYRENEES
Art 16,000 to 30,000 years old still mystifying experts as why.
1:30 to 3-hour lecture
53- ART HISTORY OF FRENCH SCULPTURE
This course will be an overview of the history of French sculpture, including discussions of sculpture as a reflection of the historical era in which it is placed. Students will compare and consider examples of sculpture from earliest times to the present - prehistoric cave sculpture at Cap Blanc, Gothic cathedrals and their sculptures, works in the palaces and chateaux of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, the works of Rodin and other 19th century sculptors, and abstract and contemporary works of this century.
5 lectures of 2 hour each
54- ART. B THE BIRTH OF IMPRESSIONISM
The 19th century was an amazing period of turmoil and creativity. Thanks to the invention of the paint tube the Beaux- Arts rules of landscape are changing. The school of Barbizon with Corot, Millet, Breton, Bonheur will revolutionize the genre painting. The Second Empire will try to dictate its taste to the public but a group of artists will change the way people paint and look at paintings.
5 lectures of 2 hours each
55- ART. B TOULOUSE-LAUTREC
The life and tribulations of an extraordinary artist well known but mostly misunderstood
1hr:45mn or 3 hour or 6 hour lecture
56- ART. B VINCENT van GOGH
His life in the Netherlands, England, Belgium and Paris through his drawings and paintings. Some lesser-known paintings from his most prolific three years in Arles and St Remy. A very different approach to the life of this admirable person, his relationship with Gauguin, his problems with the closed society of Arles and the tragic end in Auvers. The story involves Theo, the ever-loving brother without whom there wouldn't be a Vincent.
1hr:45mn or 3 hour or 6 hour lecture
57- A. H. ART. ID. B ALPHONSE MUCHA
Born in 1860 in the Czech Republic, he became interested by the visual art by. age 16 and thanks to a rich patron, many years later at the ripe old age of 27, ended like ,many other artists in Paris. He taught young students, drew illustration for low paying magazines and tried to survive as the proverbial starving artist.
He even shared briefly a studio with Gauguin then returning from his first trip in the South Seas. In 1895 he was lucky to be commissioned by the great actress Sarah Bernhardt, to create a poster for one of her plays. That will be the start of a collaboration lasting over seven years. Fame had reached him.
In 1900 for the Paris's World's Fair, Mucha designed the Bosnia-Herzegovina Pavilion and partnered with goldsmith Georges Fouquet in the creation of jewelry based on his designs. Mucha considered his success a triumph for the Czech people as much as for himself. In 1909 he was commissioned to paint a series of murals for the Lord Mayor's Hall in Prague. He started to paint "The Slav Epic" - a series of great paintings chronicling major events in the Slav nation and hoped to complete the task in five or six years, but instead it took 18 year of his life. When the Germans invaded Czechoslovakia, he was still influential enough to be one of the first people they arrested. He returned home after a Gestapo questioning session and died shortly thereafter on July 14, 1939.
1:30 hour lecture or 3 hr
58- H. ART 19TH CENTURY JEWISH ARTISTS IN, PARIS
At the end of the 19th century Paris was a thriving community for Jewish artist creating some of the most avant-garde art of the century.
1hr:45mn or 3 hour or 6 hour lectures
59- ART. H MODERN JEWISH ARTISTS
The 20th Century Jewish artists Soutine, Chagall, Lipchitz and others.
3-hour lecture. Complement "19th Century Jewish Artists in, Paris."
60- ART. H LES BALLETS RUSSES
The Ballets Russes was a ballet company established in 1909 by the Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev. The company settled in Paris in 1910. They were an "avant-garde" ballet company introducing to the public a "modern" choregraphy full of vitality away from the stiff French classical ballet, with musical composition from "modern" composers (Igor Stravinsky , Claude Debussy, Paul Dukas, Richard Strauss, Maurice Ravel, Georges Auric, Eric Satie), all of them at the other end of the spectrum of a lesser grade music often composed for the French ballet; in decor using vibrant colors often created by upcoming artists like Picasso, Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova, Jean Cocteau, Andre Derain, Leon Bakst, Joan Miro, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Juan Gris, Georges Braque.
1hr:30mn X 2 = 3hr
62- ART. H. B FRIDA KAHLO
She was a famous Mexican painter, who married the also famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera and had an affair with Leon Trotsky. Because she contracted polio at age six and had a terrible accident when in her teenager years, she suffered multiple ailments all her life. These issues are the central motif of her paintings, most of which are self-portraits. In Mexico her work is seen as inspired by national and indigenous tradition. The feminists have high regards for her work because of its depiction of the female experience. Kahlo suggested, "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best."
1hr:45mn
63- ART. B ROBERT DOISNEAU
The photos and the life of a great French photographer. In the 1930s he used a Leica on the streets of Paris; with Henri Cartier-Bresson he was a pioneer of photojournalism. He is known for his 1950 photo of a couple kissing in the busy streets of Paris (Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville).
1hr:45 mn
65- ART. B SALVADOR DALI
from the beginning to 1930
1hr:45mn
66- ART. B SALVADOR DALI
from 1930
1hr:45mn
67- ART. B PICASSO AND HIS WOMEN
How Picasso's personal life influenced his work. After each new "conquest," each separation, his style would change reflecting his mood and emotions. Madeleine, Fernande, Germaine, Olga, Marie Therese, Dora, Francoise, Jacqueline and countless others ladies were part of the long and complex life of the artist. His love life was prolific but so was his artist output: he left over 2,000 paintings and an estimated 45,000 pieces, from drawings to ceramics including engravings, lithographs, rugs and sculptures. Two hundred to 800 slides will try to tell a side of the story without pretending to tell the whole story or trying to explain such a complex person. Picasso, although a Spaniard, spent seventy-one years of his creative years in France. At his death he left a mess of an estate, which was underestimated for tax purpose at $ 260 million. From that huge estate, the French Government was able to get as inheritance taxes a collection of art works that became the foundation of the Picasso Museum in Paris which is housed in a beautiful mansion built by a salt tax collector in the 17th C. in the Marais district.
​ 1hr:45mn or 3 hour or 6 hour lecture
68- ART. B NIKI DE SAINT PHALLE AND JEAN TINGUELY
Two great artists who collaborated to created moving sculptures. Niki de Saint Phalle was the creator of a series of women sculpture called "nanas" from a derogatory French word, to express her ideas about women's position in society.
Jean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics. Tinguely's art satirized the mindless overproduction of material goods in advanced industrial society. In Basel, Switzerland there is a beautiful museum dedicated entirely to Tinguely designed by Mario Botta.
1hr:45mn
69- ART . B AMEDEO MODIGLIANI
2 x 1hr:30mn = 3hr
70- ART . B CEZANNE, GAUGUIN, VAN GOGH AND THE NABIS
the Post-Impressionism
1h:30mn or 2 x 1hr:30mn
71- ART . B RODIN AND CAMILLE CLAUDEL
1h 30mn or 2 x 1hr:30mn
72 - ART . B PAUL CEZANNE
1h 30mn or 2 x 1hr:30mn
73 - ART . B PAUL GAUGUIN
1h 30mn or 2 x 1hr:30mn
74 - ART . B CARAVAGGIO
1h 30mn or 2 x 1hr:30mn
75 - ART . B ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI
1h 30mn or 2 x 1hr:30mn
76 - ART DER BLAUE REITER ("THE BLUE RIDER")
An art group formed in Munich, Germany in 1911by Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, August Macke, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin and others when Kandinsky's painting Last Judgment was rejected from an exhibition by Neue Künstlervereinigung, a group of which Kandinsky was a member. The name Der Blaue Reiter came because Marc's loved horses, and Kandinsky the color blue. 1h 30mn or 2 x 1hr:30mn
77 - ART GEORGE GROSZ, OTTO DIX AND MAX BECKMANN
1h 30mn
78- ART THE HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL
1h 30mn X 2
79- ART CUBISM
1h 30mn X 2
80- ART BRUEGEL THE ELDER
1h 30mn X 2
81- ART MARC CHAGALL
1h 30mn
82- ART BERNINI
Probably the greatest sculptor ever. As an architect, he was good, but not as good as an artist.
1h 30mn
83- ART HIERONYMUS BOSCH
1:30mn
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84- ART THE PRE-RAPHAELITES
1h 30mn
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85- ART FAMOUS PAINTINGS OF WOMEN
Iconic works ranging in time from Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, Michelangelo’s Creation of Eve, and Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa to Whistler’s Mother by James McNeill, Nicholas Hilliard’s Elizabeth I and Picasso’s Girl in Chemise will be viewed and discussed. In addition, incredible paintings by Gustave Klimt, Edgar Degas, Johannes Vermeer, Mary Cassatt, Paul Gaugin, Amedeo Modigliani, Toulouse Lautrec and Edouard Manet will be brought to this showcase of famous paintings of women — rich and poor, famous and obscure. This series will explore the allure and mystery of femininity through the eyes and sensibilities of celebrated painters who captivatingly distilled the essence of their female subjects from the 15th to 20th centuries. Learn the fascinating stories and histories behind the paintings and the social mores of their times.
​ 1h 30mn X 2
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86- ART CHAGALL AND "THE LOVERS"
Starting with Chagall's painting "The Lovers" we explore his life and work to understand his artist's message.
1h 30mn
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87-ART WOMEN PAINTERS AND SCULPTORS
It took quite a while for women to be accepted as serious and legitimate "artists."
Some of the first famous ones, Fede Galizia, Artemisia Gentilleschi, Lavinia Fontana, Sofonisba Anguissola were part of the Late Renaissance and early Baroque periods when women had started to have more representations and powers. Those will open the roads for more women painters, although even up to the late 19th Century it was a profession not always "acceptable" for women. Starting from the 12th Century, we will learn about the great works some fantastic and talented women.
1hr 30mn or 1hr 30mn X 2
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88-ART JAMES ABBOTT McNEILL WHISTLER
1hr 30mn or 1hr 30mn X 2
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HISTORY and BIOGRAPHIES
H1- THE ALBIGEANSIANS CRUSADES
Believers of a peaceful religion popular in the Southwest France in the 11th and 12Th Centuries, the Cathars showed an amazing resourcefulness and courage in front of a larger and more powerful enemy bound to eradicate them, powered by the Roman Catholic Church and a French king happy to conduct a crusade disguising his quest to conquer a territory that would give him access to the Mediterranean. This dramatic and cruel story will see the invention of a system later known as the Inquisition.
1hr:45mn or 2 lectures of 1:30hr each
H2- The "REAL" STORY OF THE MAN WITH THE IRON MASK
Louis XIV's twin and older brother discovered when 22, spent the rest of his life in the most comfortable cells that were ever built for anyone, in three rather somber and secure fortresses. He died age 62 in the Bastille.
1hr 45mn lecture
H3- THE TERROR OF THE PRE-FRENCH REVOLUTION
The French Revolution of 1789 started several years earlier when large bands of famished people terrorized the country in their quest for food.
1hr 45mn lecture
H4- THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1789, 1830, 1871
The causes and consequences of the three main French revolutions and what influences they had on the next political system, on the French people at large and what is left of their legacies.
1hr:45mn or 3 hour or 6 hour lecture
H5- VICHY AND THE JEWS
The horrors of the Holocaust especially as it pertains to France are numerous and multi-faceted. Students will learn through this course the complexities of perhaps the most appalling and fateful movements in world history. Of topic are the Dreyfus Affair, historic Franco-German relations and tensions (including those provoked by World War I), and the German Occupation of France and the Armistice. The compliance with Germans of the French Vichy regime in implementing anti-Semitic laws and eventual Aryanization will be examined.
5 lectures of 1:30hr each.
H6- THE DREYFUS AFFAIR
At the end of the 19th century, a French officer was falsely accused to spy for the German army and the scandal that followed split the country in two, involving famous people on either side. Degas on the side that wanted to see Dreyfus executed, Emile Zola on the side that defended Dreyfus with his famous "J'accuse" pamphlet.
2 hour lecture
H7- B1 LAFAYETTE AND ROCHAMBEAU
The French’s aide to the American Revolution and the importance of Lafayette's ideas during the French Revolution.
1hr:45mn or 3 hour lecture
H8- THE DOOMED KINGS OF FRANCE IN THE 14TH CENTURY
(A fantastic soap opera about the murders, the spying, the wars against the English and the fate of the Knights Templar. Ten generations of French kings having more than their share of problems, misfortune and accidents. It all started when Philippe Le Bel who got rid of the Knights Templar was cursed by their grand master when dying at the stake. A story more complex, more surprising in changes of plots then any soap operas on TV.
5 lectures of 1:30hr each.
H9- B2 ALIENOR OF AQUITAINE
Queen of France, Queen of England, mother of Richard the Lionheart. This lecture is designed to inform students about this remarkable historical character, who is perhaps the quintessential woman behind the man. As daughter, wife and mother of some of the heavyweights of French history (including Richard the Lionheart, Henry King of England, and Louis VII King of France), Alienor and her story are engaging, passionate and involved. More importantly, her story is revealing of the political system and atmosphere of the times as well as the unities and divisions of French provinces, Circa 1100.
1hr:45mn or 3 hour or 6 hour lecture
H10- B3 NAPOLEON
From the rise to the fall.
1hr:45mn or 3 hour or 6 hour lecture
H11- B4 VARIAN FRY - LE CHAMBON-SUR-LIGNON
Varian Fry found his courage when called upon to act in a moment of extraordinary historical and personal challenge, saving thousands of lives during the Second World War. Banding together with Jewish and non-Jewish refugees from the Third Reich, as well as early French opponents to Vichy, this tiny group, with erratic assistance from colleagues in New York, may have helped to save as many as 2,000 people including Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Jacques Lipchitz, Heinrich Mann, Franz Werfel, Alma Mahler Werfel, André Breton, Victor Serge, André Masson, Lion Feuchtwanger, Konrad Heiden, Marcel Duchamp, Hannah Arendt, Max Ophuls, Walter Mehring, Jean Malaquais, Valeriu Marcu, Remedios Varo, Otto Meyerhof… The list—Fry’s list—goes on and on.
- Primarily a Huguenot town, of not more than 5,000 people, it became a haven for Jews fleeing from the Nazis during World War II. It is estimated that the people of Chambon-sur-Lignon saved between 3,000-5,000 Jews from certain death.
2 hr lecture
H12- B5 W.C. BULLITT
All the foreign ambassadors left Paris when the German troops were only a few miles from Paris. Bullitt, the American Ambassador, not only did not leave, although the French Government was already on its way out, but made a deal with the Germans so Paris would not be bombed and destroyed as Rotterdam had been by the same regiment. Bullitt was a very brilliant foreign correspondent as well as a very opinionated ambassador with views all through his life about the Soviet Union, Germany, Japan, Vietnam that were found to be all true.
2hr lecture
H13- B6 MADAME DE POMPADOUR
Jeanne Poisson (the real name of Madame de Pompadour), was nine years old when a psychic told her mother that her daughter would become the Kings's official mistress, an impossibility since she was not part of the nobility. A well educated, talented and beautiful woman, she will in many ways manage the affairs of the kingdom for her very shy lover.
1hr:45mn
H14- THE JEWS AND THE POPES IN AVIGNON
2 x 1hr:45mn lectures
H15- B7 MAHARAL OF PRAGUE
Rabbi Yehudah Leib (circa 1522-1609), known as the “Maharal of Prague,” was one of the world’s most famous rabbis. Revered during his lifetime and by many until this day, the Maharal wrote many scholastic works of great importance. He lived in a period known as the "Golden Age of Prague."
1hr:45mn to 3hr
H16- ROMAN HISTORY
The history of the Roman Empire from its early beginning to the fall of Rome and its extension as the Byzantine Empire until taken over by the Turks in the 1400s.
3 x 5 hour lectures
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H17- THE ARAB INFLUENCE IN SPAIN AFTER 711
1:45 or 3 hour
​
H18- THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE (1453-1918)
1:45 or 3 hour
​
B8- ART88 H19 FRENCH LOVERS
Jean Cocteau and Jean Marais - Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir - Georges Sand and Frederic Chopin - Diane of Poitiers and Henry II of France - Eloise and Abelard - Marie d'Agoult and Franz Liszt
6 lectures each 1hr:45mn
B9- ART89. ALMA MAHLER
Alma Maria Mahler Gropius Werfel was a Viennese-born socialite well known in her youth for her beauty and vivacity. She became the wife, successively, of composer Gustav Mahler, architect Walter Gropius, and novelist Franz Werfel, as well as the consort of several other prominent men, Gustav Klimt, theater director Max Burckhardcom, composer Alexander von Zemlinsky and artist Oskar Kokoschka. Musically active in her teens, she was the composer of at least seventeen songs. In later years her salon became an important feature of the artistic scene, first in Vienna, then in Los Angeles. In 1938, following the Anschluss, Alma and Werfel, who was Jewish, were forced to flee Austria for France. With the German invasion and occupation of France during World War II, the couple was no longer safe in France and frantically sought to secure their emigration to the United States. In Marseille they contacted Varian Fry, an American journalist and emissary of the Emergency Rescue Committee, a private American relief organization that came to the aid of many refugee intellectuals and artists at that time. Since exit visas could not be obtained, Fry arranged for the Werfels to journey on foot across the Pyrenees into Spain, in order to evade the Vichy French border officials. From Spain, Alma and Franz traveled on to Portugal and then boarded a ship for New York City.
1hr:45mn
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61- ART. ID A HISTORY OF HIGH FASHION From Frederick Worth, the "inventor" of high fashion in the mid 19th century, to the fashion of the late 1960's. 1hr:45mn
​
64- ART. H. B MESDAMES CHANEL, GRES, LANVIN
AND VIONNET
Three great ladies of High Fashion.
1hr:45mn
B10 - ART90 YVES SAINT-LAURENT
The incomparable talent of a fantastic Fashion Designer
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B11 - ART91 KARL LAGERFELD
Fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld was renowned worldwide for his inspirational, relevant and cutting-edge approach to style. He was a force of nature, coupled with an enigmatic persona and an original perspective on fashion and pop culture.
In addition to being the creative director of his signature brand, Lagerfeld oversaw the creative direction of the Chanel and Fendi fashion houses. His visionary talent further expanded beyond fashion to include illustration, photography, styling and publishing.
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B12 - ART92 COCO CHANEL
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B13 - ART93 HISTORY OF PARIS HIGH FASHION
T1 to T20 TRAVELOGS
Dordogne/Perigord; Spain; Germany; Venice; Budapest; The Tokaj region of Hungary; A view of the Czech Republic: Prague, Ceske Budejovice, ÄŒeský Krumlov, Brno; Switzerland; Provence; Rome; Tuscany; Naples and the Amalfi Coast; Tunisia; Morocco; Turkey; Mali; Malta; Sicily; Portugal; Denmark; Finland.
Each 1hr:30mn
ANY LONG LECTURE/CLASS CAN BE MODIFIED TO CREATE A LECTURE THAT IS 1HR:30 MN TO 1HR:45MN IN LENGTH.
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ANY SHORT LECTURE/CLASS CAN BE MODIFIED TO CREATE A LECTURE THAT IS 3 HR TO 20 HR IN LENGTH.
85- ART. H. FRENCH POETRY READING
(No projector - no screen)
From Villon to Saint John Perse through Ronsard, Rimbaud, Prevert, Aragon and others. In French only.
1hr:45mn
86- ART LE PETIT PRINCE by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
need projector and screen to show images
For Children above 10 years old.
Above:: Dolphins Fresco, 1700-1450 BC - Palace of Knossos - Crete - Greece
Below: Garden of Hearthly Delights, 1510 - Hieronymus Bossch - Prado, Madrid
Bottom: Ophelia, 1852 - Sir John Everett Millais - Tate Gallery London
