To support students with their GCSE or A Level course a group of Form IV to Upper Sixth Art and History of Art students visited the Tate Modern and Art Historians, The British Museum. The Tate Modern allowed the artists to draw and photograph a wide range of interesting objects and artworks. They were able to discover contemporary and modern artists whose work will now inspire their own practice.
The Lower Sixth students taking the new History of Art A Level visited the British Museum to study ancient Greek and Roman Art. As part of providing a foundational knowledge base for the A Level, students had studied ancient Greek art and architecture, in particular artworks to be found in the British Museum: the Townley Diskobolos (a Roman copy of a Greek original by Myron 460-450 BC) unearthed in the C18th at the Villa of Hadrian and the magnificent Parthenon Sculptures (447 – 432 BC).
The visit was a wonderful opportunity to consolidate their learning and further, seeing the artworks in person brings the subject alive. The educational focus was the concept of Beauty and the ideal human form and so we finished with the Farnese Hermes (C1st AD Romany copy of a C4th Greek original by Praxiteles, discovered in Rome in the Renaissance) to explore and understand the importance of contrapposto and at the same time preparing for the next part of the course, ancient Roman art and architecture.
