Iconic paintings such as Claude Monet’s Impression, soleil levant (1872) and Pierre Auguste Renoir’s Dance at the Moulin de la Galette (1876) as marking the triumph of ‘Impressionism’ in France, one of the most recognisable and cherished of all painting styles.

Aside from its beauty, the Alhambra Palace is actually a bit of an encyclopaedia of symmetry. For example, unbeknownst presumably) to the artists of the time, they have included all of the 17 possible categories of ‘wallpaper symmetry’ (ie tessellations) in the mosaics that festoon the walls. Included in this lecture are some of the fascinating aspects of the means of design and construction, and the religious imperatives behind geometry in Isiamic Art.

In the early evening of 16 October 1834, to the horror of bystanders, a huge ball of fire exploded through the roof of the Houses of Parliament, creating a blaze so enormous that it could be seen by the King and Queen at Windsor and from stagecoaches on top of the South Downs. In front of hundreds of thousands of witnesses, the great conflagration destroyed Parliament’s glorious old buildings and their contents.

In the two centuries since they were removed from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin, the meaning and significance of the ‘Elgin marbles’ has changed dramatically. From architectural decoration to disputed cultural objects this lecture looks at the response to them over their time in Britain, from the original controversy over their purchase to the current debate surrounding the restitution of the marbles to the new Acropolis Museum in Athens

Jacqueline will consider paintings, objects, photographs, drawings and collage exploring the many ways artists experimented to make visible and tangible sense of the invisible or subliminal world. This will begin with a look at artists and writers who influenced the Surrealists going all the way back to Bosch’s extraordinary visions and awareness of another world.

After a delicious morning tea, Jacqueline will continue to explore surrealism, beginning with a study of Degas’ 14-year-old dancer and ending with contemporary TV series. Through Surrealist objects it will be argued that the legacy of Surrealism lives on today and that many of the preoccupations of the artists and the way they voiced them visually has resonances in our contemporary world.

Lecturer Anne Sebba writes and talks about the twentieth century, in books, on radio and television, as a journalist and as a popular lecturer. Her biographies of Jennie Churchill and Wallis Simpson bring new insights into the lives of these extraordinarily influential American women who entered British society. A thoughtful assessment of the social and political context in which they found themselves allows us to reconsider their roles.

The Silk Road extended over 8,000 kms from China through Central Asia to the Mediterranean. Silk was just one of the many products traded for 1,400 years, but the route also acted as a highway for beliefs, ideas, inventions and art.