Cambridge University Reporter


History of Art Tripos, Part IIA and Part IIB: Special Subject for 2005-06

The Faculty Board of Architecture and History of Art give notice that a new Special Subject for Part IIA and Part IIB of the History of Art Tripos, entitled 'Painting in France from the Ancien Régime to the Second Empire, c.1770-c.1855', will replace the existing Special Subject, Paper 16/17 'Modern Movements' in 2005-06. Details of the new Special Subject are as follows:

Painting in France from the Ancien Régime to the Second Empire, c.1770-c.1855

This option will deal with French painting during a period of extreme political turbulence and great artistic fertility. Although the emphasis will be on the great painters whose work dominates the period - David, Gros, Girodet, Ingres, Géricault, Delacroix, Corot, Millet, and Courbet among others - their activity will be set within the context of governmental change, which brought changes in the pattern and content of state commissions, and broader cultural movements, in which some attention will be paid to contemporary developments in literature. This period is often thought of as comprising Neo-Classicism, Romanticism, and Realism, but it will be seen that such stylistic labels are quite inadequate to describe the wide range of art produced in France at the time.