The Arts Society
Chichester Evening
Study Days
Opera, Its History and Improbable Success Story
5 March 2025
Sarah Lenton has been working in this glorious but disconcerting art form for her entire professional life. Here, she unpacks some of its idiosyncrasies – the huge voices, big gestures, and bizarre plots – and covers practically everything and everyone involved in putting on a show.
Previous Study Days
Breaking the Mould: rebellion and rebirth in British sculpture 1900-1930s
29 October 2024
The Lion of the Sea, a study day on the Art of Venice: Douglas Skeggs
27 February 2024
Burned, Bombed or Bulldozed: Britain’s Lost Houses - Mathew Williams
31 Oct 2023
There is something incomparably romantic about a long-lost country house, and although Britain still possesses some of the finest of these architectural treasures to be found anywhere, many have been destroyed. A single ruined lodge or pavilion, an over-grown drive or group of mature trees are sometimes all that now exists to remind us of a lost house and pleasure-ground.
Caillebotte and Tissot: Impressionists or Realists?
The lecturer, Tim Stimson, gave a most engaging lecture on two less well known Impressionist artists - Tissot and Caillebotte. Tissot was described as ‘this complex being’ and painted such detail in sometimes paintings of only two feet wide. He also painted cartoons for Vanity Fair. There are no paintings by Caillebotte in galleries in the UK. Caillebotte was of independent means and was a great collector of other artists’ work. He painted a number of street scenes of Paris and was appreciated for his accurate control of perspective. .Both artists painted images depicting the defence of Paris in the Franco Prussian war.