Berwick Art Appreciation - Thursday 23 April '26

From Ingres to Picasso – The Making of Modern Art

Almost a century separates the conception of these two iconic paintings, brought together in 2022 in an exhibition at the National Gallery to celebrate Picasso’s homage to the Neoclassical master, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. During this period, the Industrial Revolution, intense, far reaching social change, the Great War and human ingenuity, transformed the style and meaning of art, its conception and commodification. Where Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Realism, were characterised by figurative and representative art, but with varied emphasis, the development of photography, the invention of zinc paint tubes, portable easels and train travel, laid the foundation for Impressionism; the plein air capture of the transient effects of light and colour, most vividly expressed by Monet. Van Gogh and Gauguin combined colour and symbolism, leading to Expressionism, whilst Cezanne laid the foundations for Cubism. All of this and more besides as we journey through decades of artistic change.

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