Artistic Rivalries and Reputations: Renaissance to Modern

Rivalry has always been a spur to creativity as well as a means of forging an artist’s reputation. Only when art became a matter of wider prestige, and the names of artists were considered worthy of record, could they begin to enjoy a reputation beyond the local sphere, and only then could the serious business of competition with contemporaries and across generations begin. Since then the history of art has been dominated by celebrated rival reputations – between Leonardo and Michaelangelo, Manet and Monet, Matisse and Picasso, Magritte and Dali, Hockney and Freud. So what is reputation, and is rivalry necessary to maintain it? This course explores the stories behind some of the most famous artistic rivalries, and how they have helped build and demolish reputations from the Early Renaissance to Modernism. It will explain why competition has been fostered by patrons and academies and why commentators on the arts have shaped our image of the artist as brand. It will show how fame, personal envy, the clash between the old and the new, even the Media-manufactured reputations of today have transformed art through conflict and emulation.

Suitable for


Admission
£530, £450 concessions

Website
http://www.vam.ac.uk/whatson/event/3427/artistic-rivalries-and-reputations-renaissance-to-modern-4886/

Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk//se000168?id=EVENT491807