free course icon
level 1: introductory icon
History & The Arts
Empires: power, resistance, legacies
Empires have existed throughout most of human history. They have spanned the globe. They have influenced the way we are governed, our systems of trade, how we use technology, our relationships with the natural world. They have shaped how we have seen, mapped and divided the world. They have profoundly affected how we have understood and ...
free course icon
level 1: introductory icon
History & The Arts
The Byzantine icon
This course is a short journey into the rich world of Byzantine artistic production via its most illustrious representative – the icon.
free course icon
level 1: introductory icon
History & The Arts
Travelling for culture: the Grand Tour
In the eighteenth century and into the early part of the nineteenth, considerable numbers of aristocratic men (and occasionally women) travelled across Europe in pursuit of education, social advancement and entertainment, on what was known as the Grand Tour. A central objective was to gain exposure to the cultures of classical antiquity, ...
free course icon
level 1: introductory icon
Badge icon
History & The Arts
A freelance career in the creative arts
A freelance career in the creative arts is a free badged course which lasts 8 weeks, with approximately 3 hours’ study time each week. You can work through the course at your own pace, so if you have more time one week, there’s nothing to stop you pushing on and completing another week’s study. This course has a specific focus on the ...
free course icon
level 2: intermediate icon
History & The Arts
Exploring books for children: words and pictures
Many people have fond memories of the stories they encountered in childhood, perhaps especially of those wonderful picture books and illustrated tales which fired our young imaginations and transported us to magical worlds. To an adult’s eye, some picture books may seem remarkably simple, even oversimplified. However, in this free course, ...
free course icon
level 3: advanced icon
History & The Arts
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 icon
level 1: introductory icon
History & The Arts
Visions of protest: graffiti
This free course, Visions of protest: graffiti, introduces students to contrasting understandings of graffiti. It draws on a wide range of graffiti examples, including mystery zebras in Hackney, fish graffiti in Morecambe, 'tags' in a Milton Keynes underpass, a McDonald's advert and exhibits at a highly established art gallery, the Tate Modern....
free course icon
level 2: intermediate icon
History & The Arts
The Enlightenment
The free course will examine the Enlightenment. To help understand the nature and scale of the cultural changes of the time, we offer a 'map' of the conceptual territory and the intellectual and cultural climate. We will examine the impact of Enlightenment on a variety of areas including science, religion, the classics, art and nature. Finally, ...
free course icon
level 1: introductory icon
History & The Arts
Picturing the family
Besides being simple mementos, family photographs can offer insights into the past. This free course, Picturing the family, looks at some of the ways photographs can reveal, and sometimes conceal, important information about the past. It teaches the skills and provides some of the knowledge needed to interpret such pictorial sources.
free course icon
level 2: intermediate icon
History & The Arts
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 icon
level 2: intermediate icon
History & The Arts
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 icon
level 2: intermediate icon
History & The Arts
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...