Art Historian Dr Matthew Whyte offers a new lecture series, which takes the audience on an art-filled journey through the often beautiful, sometimes scandalous, and always fascinating moments in the development of Western civilisation.

Week 1: The Pre-Raphaelites & The Birth of Modernism

In this first week, we explore the artists who looked back in order to move forward in the first breaths of modernism. Famously referred to as the Pre-Raphaelites, a name which these artists coined for themselves, the group looked back to the art of the Middle Ages as an act of resistance again the Royal Academy, whose control over artistic production and education was increasingly being perceived to be unjust.