CLASSICISM IN VICTORIAN PAINTING TALK 1

Sat 11 Oct 2026, 11am–12pm

At the Museum and Online

In-person talk takes place in the Headley Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom

Tickets are £10. Booking is essential

Tickets will be available to book soon

With artist & art historian Martin Beek

The first of two talks on Victorian Painters looks at the Olympian artists of the Royal Academy and their explorations of the classical mythology of beauty.

The paintings of Frederic Leighton, Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Edward Poynter not only absorb exciting archaeological discoveries, but they also act as a cipher or mirror of late Victorian society.

Circular Victorian oil painting of Acme and Septimius by Frederic Leighton showing two lovers taken from a love poem by the Roman poet Catullus

Acme and Septimius, Frederic Leighton, 1858, circular oil painting

Many artists closely used classical mythological sources; others, such as Albert Moore and John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, used the mythic past in their own explorations of ideal beauty.

This is the first talk in this series of two. Each talk needs to be booked separately.