Study Days
Outline
Our popular Study Days, held in the Digby Hall, Sherborne, comprise three lectures on the same day. There are two lectures in the morning with a coffee break between them followed by lunch with wine or soft drinks and a further lecture in the afternoon.
There is a charge for participants (including members of The Arts Society Sherborne). This charge is set for each Study Day and is shown when booking opens.
Booking, Arrival and Check-in
Places are limited to a maximum of about 70 and pre-booking is essential. Booking for the next Study day through the website opens a few months before the date. An off-line application form can be requested through our contacts page or can be picked up at one of our lectures.
The programme normally starts at 10:30 and finishes by approximately 3:15.
Participants are asked to arrive at the Hall by 10:15 to allow time for check-in and to take their seats by 10:25
Non-member visitors are welcome at an additional charge, normally £5.
Future Study Days
Next Study Day
Art of the Italian Renaissance Courts
Digby Hall, Sherborne
Tuesday 10 November 2026
Piero della Francesca – Duke Federico da Montefeltro and his wife, Battiata Sforza
Although less well known than Florence, Venice and Rome, the Italian princeley courts of Mantua, Ferrara, Urbino and Milan produced some of the most splendid art of the renaissance, by some of the greatest artists of the period, including Piero della Francesca, Pisanello, Mantegna and Leonardo da Vinci. Princely patrons not only used art as propaganda, but also as a means of expressing their private tastes and interests, often in a lavish style.
Programme for the day
Please take your seats in the Hall by 10:25
10:00 -10:15 Arrival and Greeting
Lecture 1
Palazzo Ducale (Ducal Palace) in Urbino
The first two lectures will look broadly at the distinctive art produced for princely courts, which includes convents and chapels, castles and palaces, frescoed reception rooms and intimate private studies, aletrpieces, illuminated books, portraits and playing cards. We shall encounter some of the most colourful patrons of the period, including the fiesty Isabella d’Este, Marchioness of Mantua, and her brother-in-law Lodovico ‘il Moro’ Sforza, who usurped the Duchy of Milan but eventually came to a sticky end in France. We shall explore some of the great works they and their families commissioned, including Mantegna’s Camera degli Sposi at Mantua, and Leonardo’s Lady with the Ermine.
Coffee Break
Lecture 2
Leonardo da Vinci, Lady with the Ermine (1489-91)
Andrea Mantegna, The Triumphs of Caesar 4, The Vase Bearers
Lecture 2 continues our exploration of some of the great works they and their families commissioned, including Mantegna’s Camera degli Sposi at Mantua, and Leonardo’s Lady with the Ermine.
Lunch
Lecture 3
Piero della Francesca – Flagellation of Christ (1459-1460)
The third lecture will focus on the court of Urbino, which boasts the most beautiful palace of the Renaissance, and where Piero della Francesca produced a number of his masterpieces, including the famous portraits of Duke Federico da Montefeltro and his wife, Battista Sforza, and the Flagellation of Christ.
15:00 Questions and Answers
Presenter: Paula Nuttall
Paula gained her BA and PhD from the Courtauld Institute. She is a specialist in Renaissance art, both Italian and Northern European, on which she has published widely, notably “From Flanders to Florence: the Impact of Netherlandish Painting 1400-1500 (Yale 2004)”. She has collaborated on major exhibitions including “Jan van Eyck: an Optical Revolution (Ghent, 2020)”. She was formerly a Director of the V&A Medieval and Renaissance Year course, and lecturer at – among others – the Courtaul and the British Institute of Florence. Now largely retired, she continues to lecture for the Arts Society, to research and to write.
BOOKING FOR THIS STUDY DAY WILL OPEN THROUGH THIS SITE IN LATE APRIL/EARLY MAY 2026
Members will be notified by email when booking is opened
To book for this Study Day please complete and submit the following form. When you press “Submit” you will be taken to the payment process which must be completed before your booking is confirmed. You can pay by card or bank transfer.
Past Study Days
Arts and Crafts Movement in the Cotswolds and its churches
kirsty hartsiotis
Tuesday 10 March 2026
The Cotswolds was one of the first rural centres of the Arts and Crafts Movement, with architects and designers of the Movement moving to the area to work and craft from the 1890s onwards. The designers and makers who moved settled in the area became a key part of the artistic and cultural life of the area, their influence still felt today by the many crafters who live and work there. From the first, churches in the region of all denominations commissioned work from Arts and Crafts designers, from whole churches, including one of the so-called `cathedrals of the Arts and Crafts` to some of the most important Arts and Crafts stained-glass schemes. Their work and its legacy is very much alive in the Cotswold churches today.
British and American artists in Venice
Tuesday 18 November 2025
Julian Halsby
The first English artist to paint Venice seriously was Turner who made three visits between 1819 and 1840. Although these were brief, Venice was to have a great impact on his later style and he produced a large quantity of wonderfully loose oils and watercolours. John Ruskin also fell in love with Venice and his three-volume book ‘The Stones of Venice’ became a best seller in Europe and the United States. Not only did Ruskin produce fine watercolours and photographs of Venice, he also encouraged younger artists like Goodwin, Boyce and Inchbold to paint there.
In 1879 following his disastrous court case against Ruskin, James McNeil Whistler arrived in Venice bankrupt and depressed. The Fine Art Society had paid for him to work there for three months, but he remained for over a year producing some of his best etchings, pastels and oils. His Venetian exhibitions in Bond Street were an enormous success and his position as the leading modern artist in Britain was re-established.
John Singer Sargent had been to Venice as a child, but returned in 1880 to start a long love affair with the city. His relations bought the Palazzo Barbaro on the Grand Canal which became his spiritual home from where he set off each summer to paint sparkling watercolours, some of his finest works.
Other artists working there before the First World War include Walter Sickert and Arthur Melville. The day ends with a brief look at contemporary artists Ken Howard, Diana Armfield and Bernard Dunstan who have all made Venice their own.
The Barbizon School and the Lure of Nature
Tuesday 25 March 2025
Kathy McLauchlan
Who were the Barbizon School? They were some of the first painters to paint “en plein air”, taking their inspiration from a painting they had seen in Paris by John Constable: “The Hay Wain”. This was rejected by Londoners but revolutionised landscape painting in France.
This loose association of artists who met in the inn in Barbizon – a small village near Fontainebleau – included such names as Camille Corot, Theodore Rousseau and Jean-Francois Millet to name but three. They in their turn inspired the French Impressionists some of whom studied in Barbizon.