Short course
Passion and Politics in French Art, c.1789-1870
Course status:
Applications being accepted
Dates and time:
20/01/2027 - 24/03/202714:00 - 16:00
Study format:
In-person weekly
Fees:
£315.00
From the elegance of the Rococo to the stoic morality of Neoclassicism, from the fantasies of Orientalism to the social observation of Realism and the birth of impressionism, the decades between the French Revolution of 1789 and the later revolutions of 1830, 1848, and 1871 transformed the history of modern painting. This course explores how artists in France responded to an age shaped by revolution, empire, industrialisation, and social upheaval. As monarchies fell, empires rose, barricades were built and destroyed, and Europe was repeatedly remade through war and protest, painters reimagined what art should do. Should art glorify power? Provide aesthetic pleasure? Inspire patriotism? Expose uncomfortable realities? Or capture modern life and individual experience?
Across ten sessions, we will examine some of the most compelling artworks of later eighteenth and nineteenth-century France. Along the way, we will ask how art shapes political memory, how images could be seen to create heroes and foment revolutions, how artists dealt with changes to their world, and how they constructed visions of gender, class, race, and nation. Major figures will include François Boucher, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Anne-Louis Girodet, Jacques-Louis David, Théodore Géricault, Eugène Delacroix, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Rosa Bonheur, Théodore Rousseau, Jean-François Millet, Honoré Daumier, Gustave Courbet, Edouard Manet, and the early impressionists.
Through close visual analysis, targeted readings, and group discussion we will explore how artists navigated one of the most turbulent and transformative periods in European history, and how their images continue to shape our understanding of modernity and modernism.
Book this course
Book your place online using the button below.
Course starts Wednesday 20 January 2027
This is an in-person course which requires your attendance at the weekly meetings in Oxford on Wednesdays, 2.00-4.00pm.
Week 1: Art and the Ancien Régime
Week 2: Painting Women / Women Painting
Week 3: Portraits of Race in the French Empire
Week 4: Neoclassicism: Art and Virtue
Week 5: Romantics at Home and Away
Week 6: Political Caricature and Realism
Week 7: Barbizon Painting
Week 8: A Crisis of the Nude
Week 9: Visual Culture of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune
Week 10: 1874 and the Birth of Impressionism
Course aims
This course aims to enable participants to develop an understanding of the major artistic movements that shaped French painting and visual culture between the later eighteenth century to the emergence of Impressionism, and to explore the relationship between art and its historical, social, and political contexts.
Course objectives
By the end of the course, participants will have been given the opportunity to:
- explore the major artists and movements in French art from the Rococo to Impressionism within their historical and cultural contexts
- examine how artists responded to revolution, empire, industrialisation, war, and social upheaval, and consider how art contributed to the represenatation of gender, race, class, nation, and modern life
- discuss artworks critically in relation to relevant terms and concepts of scholarship
Learning outcomes
- identify key artistic movements in late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French art
- apply appropriate art historical terminology and concepts to works of art
- situate art within its political and social contexts
- evaluate how representations of gender, race, class, and national identity were constructed and contested in art of the period
- critically engage with selected art-historical scholarship and use it to support interpretation of artworks and themes discussed in class
Level and demands
The Department’s Weekly Classes are taught at FHEQ Level 4, ie first year undergraduate level, and you will be expected to engage in a significant amount of private study in preparation for the classes. This may take the form, for instance, of reading and analysing set texts, responding to questions or tasks, or preparing work to present in class.
Teaching methods
Short lectures followed by discussion and conversation.
Assessment methods
Only those students who have registered for assessment and accreditation, in advance of the course start date, can submit coursework/assignments for assessment.
Assessment
You will be set two pieces of work for the course. The first of 500 words is due halfway through your course. This does not count towards your final outcome but preparing for it, and the feedback you are given, will help you prepare for your assessed piece of work of 1,500 words due at the end of the course. The assessed work is marked pass or fail.
Dr Allison Deutsch
Allison Deutsch is a specialist in nineteenth-century French painting and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She joined Oxford Lifelong Learning in 2023, and has directed the undergraduate Certificate and Diploma programmes in the History of Art. Dr Deutsch has also taught and held Fellowships at Birkbeck, University of London, and University College London [UCL]. Her work has been funded by the Leverhulme Trust and the Institute of Advanced Studies at UCL. In 2021 her first book, Consuming Painting: Food and the Feminine in Impressionist Paris, was published by Penn State University Press, and she has authored chapters in volumes published by Routledge and Yale University Press. Deutsch’s articles have appeared in Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Dix-Neuf, and Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, among others. If you are interested in France, food, or feminism, Dr Deutsch looks forward to learning with you!
Academic credit
Credit Accumulation Transfer Scheme (CATS Points)
Please note, students who do not register for assessment and accreditation during the enrolment process will not be able to do so after the course has begun. If you wish to gain credit from completing this course you must register to do so before the course starts.
Only those who have registered for assessment and accreditation will be awarded CATS points for completing work to the required standard. Please note that assignments are not graded but are marked either pass or fail.
Learn more about the Credit Accumulation Transfer Scheme.
If you are enrolled on the Certificate of Higher Education at the Department you need to indicate this on the enrolment form but there is no additional registration fee for assessment and accreditation.
Digital certificate of completion
Students who are registered for assessment and accreditation and pass their final assignment will also be eligible for a digital Certificate of Completion. Information on how to access the digital certificate will be emailed to you after the end of the course. The certificate will show your name, the course title and the dates of the course attended. You will be able to download the certificate and share it on social media if you choose to do so.
Fees
| Description | Costs |
|---|---|
| Course fee (with no assessment) | £315.00 |
| Assessment and Accreditation fee | £60.00 |
Funding
If you are in receipt of a UK state benefit, or are a care-leaver in the UK, you may be eligible for a reduction of 50% of tuition fees. Please see the below link for full details:
Concessionary fees for short courses
Recommended reading
Recommended reading is optional and you are not required to purchase these books to study this course.
Library facilities
All weekly class students may become borrowing members of the Rewley House Library, part of the Bodleian Libraries, for the duration of their course. Prospective students whose courses have not yet started are also welcome to use the Library for reference.
- More information about the Library can be found on the Bodleian Libraries website.
- This guide for Weekly Class students also provides further information.
Preparatory reading
- Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History / Eisenman, Stephen F.
- Modernity and Modernism: French Painting in the Nineteenth Century / Frascina, Francis, Nigel Blake, Briony Fer, and Charles Harrison
- Extremities: Painting Empire in Post-Revolutionary France / Grigsby, Darcy Grimaldo
Module code: O26P468ARW
How to enrol
Please use the ‘Book now’ button on this page.
How to register for accreditation and assessment
To be able to submit coursework and to earn credit (CATS points) for this course, if you wish to do so, you will need to register and pay an additional £60 fee. You can do this by ticking the relevant box at the bottom of the enrolment form or when enrolling online.
Students who do not register for CATS points during the enrolment process will not be able to do so after the course has begun.
If you are enrolled on the Certificate of Higher Education at the Department you need to indicate this on the enrolment form but there is no additional registration fee.