Lectures take place on Wednesdays, from 2–3:30pm GMT.
Wednesday 21 January 2026
Landscape
A new emphasis on the clarity of the air and the skies, and always the weather because it affected trading. Those buying the paintings were merchants and this new approach resonated with them.
Wednesday 28 January 2026
Genre
Sometimes known as “the portraiture of Holland” these images of everyday life in interiors and taverns and markets reflected the actual experiences of Dutch life in the period.
Wednesday 4 February 2026
Frans Hals
Hals painted people with a distinct reality: fashionable clothes, full of life characters often with a glimmer of a smile on their lips, and in a modern painterly style that was the forerunner of French Impressionism.
Wednesday 11 February 2026
Jan Steen
Still today in Holland people talk of a “Jan Steen household” meaning dishevelled, chaotic and out of hand. Steen was a master of moral (or immoral) observation.
Wednesday 18 February 2026
Rembrandt van Rijn
Rembrandt is the central figure in the Dutch Golden Age. He was a prolific painter, draughtsman and printmaker with wide ranging subjects from landscape to the Bible and portraits, which are given unparalleled emotional depth.
Wednesday 25 February 2026
Johannes Vermeer
Vermeer produced only a few paintings in his lifetime but with colours and tones used in a confident scientific manner. It is clear that he understood Leonardo’s theory that every object absorbs the colour of the adjacent objects.
How and when to watch
Each lecture will last approximately 1 hour, followed by questions.
Please join in good time before each lecture to ensure that you have no connection problems. We recommend joining 10-15 minutes before the start time.