During the spring 1620, the emperor of the Mughal dynasty, Jahangir, visited the region of Kashmir. In his memoirs, he described with awe the colourful flowers he saw, all in bloom at this time of the year. He also related how he tasked one of his imperial artist, Mansur, to paint more than a hun...

Janelle will discuss devotional art and their hidden symbolism, that decorated churches in Europe. First touching on the Northern Renaissance and the role of altarpieces, Janelle will next take a closer look into who commissioned them. The last two works are private devotionals and connect to the...

For the majority of Christians, Advent is a season of preparation for the birth of Christ – the lead up to Christmas. But theologically it also heralds the Second Coming, and it was traditional for sermons on the Four Sundays of Advent to be about the Four Last Things – Death, Judgement, Heaven a...

In 1655 a new Pope, Alexander VII, fired with religious zeal, political guile and a mani for building, determined to restore the prestige of his Church by making Rome the must-visit destination for Europe’s elite. To help him do so, he enlisted the talents of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, already celebra...

Charles Eamer Kempe was an influential but controversial figure in the world of Victorian stained glass. His friendship and collaboration with the architect George Frederick Bodley helped to establish a distinctive High Anglican aesthetic that has yet to disappear entirely, but his life and legac...

The talk will explain how various textile types from the Pre-Columbian Americas were adapted to create Catholic church ornaments beginning in the sixteenth century. Examples will be drawn from each of the chapters of Dr. Stanfield-Mazzi’s new book, Clothing the New World Church: Liturgical Textil...

In 1981 the Redundant Churches Committee of the Church Commissioners agreed by a narrow margin – one vote – to vest All Saints, Cambridge, in the Churches Conservation Trust, thus saving it from certain mutilation and possible demolition. The building, designed by George Frederick Bodley and open...

Ever wondered how you go about looking at funerary monuments? How were they built? Who built them? What do they tell us? Join the Churches Conservation Trust and Dr Jean Wilson, from The Church Monuments Society, for this fascinating lecture exploring the wide-ranging subject of funerary monument...

Enjoy this amazing talk, which is given by leading medieval art expert, Professor Paul Binski.

Medieval England was famous for its marginal art - bizarre, funny and playful images crowd the borders of illuminated manuscripts and peek out at us in parish churches. But what were they for? Did they...

This talk explores the carved cadaver memorials in England. It places them in their theological and vernacular religious context, as well as providing a little information on where they sit in relation to images of the dead in medieval culture, and their connection to the body. It also touches on...

Martin Travers (1886-1948) was one of the leading church furnishers and stained glass artists of his generation.

His personal life was complicated but he managed to attract a primarily Anglo-Catholic clientele, particularly in the years after the First World War (when church furnishers were busy...

Winchester Cathedral has a large amount of historical graffiti across all areas of this building, now nearly 1,000 years old. A survey and photographic record of this graffiti can be analysed to help an understanding of how this building has been used and viewed across the centuries by people who...

View and learn about some of the most famous images of Death. Discover how they came about and how they worked, looking especially at Christian attitudes to the body, the role of fear, and the way art itself comes up with ideas.

This talk is given by Professor Paul Binski FBA. He is Professor of...

The First World War saw an outpouring of grief like nothing England had seen before. Most communities had lost people, and all wanted a lasting memorial to those who were gone. It brought art to the forefront of the British public’s mind, and was thus a business opportunity like no other for arch...

The talk will cover the importance of the date of the Annunciation in the Christian Calendar, the development of devotion to the Mystery of the Annunciation and its expression in the art and imagery of medieval parish churches in England. It will look at the origin of the legends surrounding the ...

Giotto’s frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, painted between 1303 and 1305, constitute one of the most beautiful, most coherent and most complete decorative schemes to have survived the ravages of time, the changes of taste, and the vagaries of flood, fire and other ‘Acts of God’. Telling ...

The Arts & Crafts church was an eccentric notion – new churches built around 1900, when Britain was no longer a church-going nation, and belief in God was no longer obligatory. And yet the aesthetic urge remained in architects, and spiritual searching still drove their clients. This talk sets the...

​​In this talk given by Dr Christina Welch, we will explore the 'erotic' proto- and Reformation-era 'Death and the Maiden' artworks produced by the artists known as the Little Masters. It will set these in their historical context and consider how they relate to the perceived gender of Death as m...

‘Stained Glass in the English Parish Church – through the ages’ Two parts with Dr Jasmine Allen, Curator, The Stained Glass Museum
This talk, the second of two, draws attention to the enormously diverse collection of stained glass windows to be found in the English parish church, from the medieva...

In part one we explore the earliest stained glass to be found in England up to the Reformation era, revealing the evolving use of stained glass in gothic architecture and its role within the medieval church and society.

Dr Jasmine Allen is Director of The Stained Glass Museum (charity no. 116984...