GEORGE NEWS - Those interested in the history of the fine arts will be happy to learn that three fascinating art talks will be presented at the Civic Centre in the next three months. 

The speaker is Dr Brendan Cole, an art historian and artist who specialises in late-nineteenth century non-realist art. Cole has published widely in international journals and tutored at Oxford University and the Open University before becoming a schoolmaster at Eton.

The talks will cover the re-emergence of classical subjects in Renaissance painting, and the influence of ancient Greek and Roman culture and mythology in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth century.

The topic of the first talk on Thursday 25 May is "Private patrons and private loves: the ideal of love and beauty during the early Renaissance".

Cole will discuss the works of Early Renaissance artists Botticelli and Mantegna that they produced for their patrons, Lorenzo de Medici and Eleanora ds'Este respectively, with a focus on their allegorical use of mythological figures to express contemporary ideas of spiritual love and beauty.

Talk two on Thursday 29 June, "Touched by the divine: mortality and transcendence", centres around the interactions of classical gods with mortal figures in High Renaissance art. The focus will be on Raphael's cycle of Cupid and Psyche in the Villa Farnesina in Rome and Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne (National Gallery, London).

The topic of the third talk on Thursday 27 July is "Nature and the ideal; beauty and transcendence in mannerist art". Attendees will learn about the works of post-Renaissance artists working in the Mannerist style, such as Lavinia Fontana and Giorgio Vasari, who used mythological motifs to express the artistic ideals of the Mannerist period.

All the talks start at 11:00 and will be held in the auditorium at George Civic Centre, 71 York Street (main municipal buildings).

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