On Friday, 25 April, the First and Second Form Scholars took part in a promenade seminar on Art History and Criticism at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. They were led by Ms Emmeline Hallmark of TreeArtGallery, who studied at the Courtauld Institute, specialising in British landscape art of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She worked for over twenty years as the Head of the British Paintings and Drawings Department at Sotheby’s. She later worked in the international art world as an art curator, advisor and consultant.
Through an experiential approach, Ms Hallmark guided the Scholars in learning how to read and interpret 19th-century paintings, drawing on artists’ biographies and the broader social context to enhance their readings. The morning session centred on portraits by the German émigré Walter Sickert. Ms Hallmark taught Scholars how to use their newly acquired skills to suggest why the artist decided to paint the picture. In the afternoon, Scholars used these skills to critique landscapes by Turner and Constable. To conclude the day, Scholars chose their paintings to critique, discussing their findings with each other.
