Art Historian Dr Matthew Whyte offers a 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.

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, drawing inspiration from literature and nature, focusing on creating emotionally and spiritually evocative work. Meanwhile, the Realists sought an innovative solution that would shed light on the social inequalities that defined modern life by doing something never done before: depicting working class life as it really was. These were the first breaths of modernism.