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Art and the Mexican Revolution
In this free course, Art and the Mexican Revolution, you will explore one of Diego Rivera’s key murals which was commissioned by the Mexican government in the period after the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. These monumental public artworks, designed to win over the Mexican peasantry and working-class to the new post-revolutionary state, ...
Free course
7 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Listening for form in popular music
This free course, Listening for form in popular music, explores form, or how music is organised in time. It looks at three strategies for communicating form – through the use of specialist terms (such as ‘chorus’ and ‘bridge’), alphabetic designations (for example AABA), and visual diagrams. It also considers how the form of a song works with ...
Free course
10 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Art in Renaissance Venice
This free course, Art in Renaissance Venice, considers the art of Renaissance Venice and how such art was determined in many ways by the city's geographical location and ethnically diverse population. Studying Venice and its art offers a challenge to the conventional notion of Renaissance art as an entirely Italian phenomenon.
Free course
6 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Napoleonic paintings
In this free course, Napoleonic paintings, we will examine a range of Napoleonic imagery by David, Gros and a number of other artists, beginning with comparatively simple single-figure portraits and moving on to elaborate narrative compositions, such as Jaffa and Eylau. In so doing, we will have three main aims: to develop your skills of visual ...
Free course
16 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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An introduction to music research
In this free course, An introduction to music research, we have gathered together materials to allow you to explore the ways in which music may be researched. After thinking about different kinds of musical knowledge and their relationship with various musical practices (including performance, composition, and listening), you'll be introduced to...
Free course
16 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Brighton Pavilion
In this free course, Brighton Pavilion, you will examine the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, and its relationship to nineteenth-century Romanticism and exoticism. You'll begin with a biographical discussion of the Prince of Wales, afterwards Prince Regent and eventually King George IV, to whose specifications the Pavilion was built. With the help of...
Free course
16 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Recording music and sound
This free course, Recording music and sound, provides an historical introduction to music and sound recording in the creative industries and offers some guidance about making your own recordings. Many of the processes that have been developed and the issues that have been raised in the first 150 years of recording are still relevant today, and a...
Free course
8 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Artists and authorship: the case of Raphael
Individual artists have been the traditional focus of art history, but how do we evaluate the figure of the artist? This free course, Artists and authorship: the case of Raphael, takes the life of Raphael as a case study. You will examine sixteenth-century sources to explore the creation of artistic authorship in the early modern era. The ...
Free course
10 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Goya
What influenced Goya? Did Napoleon's invasion of Spain alter the course of Goya's career? This free course will guide you through the works of Goya and the influences of the times in which he lived. Anyone with a desire to look for the influences behind a work of art will benefit from studying this course.
Free course
5 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Dutch painting of the Golden Age
Seventeenth-century Dutch painting stands out from other art of the same period and even more so from that of previous centuries on account of its apparently ‘everyday’ character. Works by artists such as Johannes Vermeer, Pieter de Hooch and Jacob van Ruisdael seem to offer a faithful picture of life in the Netherlands at the time. In studying ...
Free course
4 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Music and its media
This free course, Music and its media, examines some of the main ways in which music is transmitted. It considers how the means of communicating a particular piece can change over time; and how the appearance and contents of a source can reflect the circumstances in which it is produced. The course focuses on three examples of musical media that...
Free course
16 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Voice-leading analysis of music 1: the foreground
This free course, Voice-leading analysis of music 1: the foreground, introduces 'voice-leading' or 'Schenkerian' analysis, perhaps the most widely used and discussed method of analysing tonal music. In this course, this method is explained through the analysis of piano sonatas by Mozart. The course is the first in the AA314 series of three ...
Free course
20 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Composition and improvisation in cross-cultural perspective
Improvisation and composition are words frequently used in the western world to describe the creation of music. But are they really two distinct processes, or are they aspects of the same phenomenon? In this free course, Composition and improvisation in cross-cultural perspective, we will explore the relationship between the two using examples ...
Free course
20 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Reception of music in cross-cultural perspective
Music is created to be performed, in most cases for an audience, whether in a concert hall, at a street fair or through a radio. But how those listeners receive a piece or style of music influences future music production. This free course, Reception of music in cross-cultural perspective, explores how audience reception, changing social ...
Free course
15 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Schubert's Lieder: Settings of Goethe's poems
This free course, Schubert's Lieder: Settings of Goethe's poems, looks at the short poems in German that were set to music by Franz Schubert (17971828) for a single voice with piano, a genre known as 'Lieder' (the German for 'songs'). Once they became widely known, Schubert's Lieder influenced generations of songwriters up to the present day. ...
Free course
16 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Icarus: entering the world of myth
This free course, Icarus: entering the world of myth, will introduce you to one of the best-known myths from classical antiquity and its various re-tellings in later periods. You will begin by examining how the Icarus story connects with a number of other ancient myths, such as that of Theseus and the Minotaur. You will then be guided through an...
Free course
3 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Helen Langdon's ‘Caravaggio’
Accounts of Caravaggio's life are filled with suggestions of murder and intrigue. But does knowing more about this dark artist's experiences help us to interpret his art? Or does understanding his motivations cloud their true meaning? This free course, Helen Langdon's 'Caravaggio', explores the biographical monograph, one of the most common ...
Free course
20 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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