Crossing Continents – Northern Lights

In this special interest day we look at some of the ways in which artistic ideas have moved across, around and between continents. Concentrating on Northern Europe, we’ll consider some of the historical forces that have shaped European culture through war and conquest, but also through trade, exploration and fashion.

After a historical introduction, we’ll concentrate on developments across the past 150 years – taking as many examples as possible from art that pictures and reflects real lives and domestic interiors. We’ll meet painters, interior designers and dress reformers, as well as idealistic architects. But we’ll also see how art and politics collide and how the Nazi hatred of the avant-garde forced artists to move to survive – so spreading artistic ideas even more widely than before.