My Personal Tour of Western Art in 200 Talks
Thank you for joining me on my personal tour of Western Art. Below are all my current and planned talks organised chronologically into chapters. Each chapter is numbered, for example, “02” is Egyptian art.
The links take you to my notes and references in PDF format and each link is followed by the talk from my YouTube channel for Laurence Shafe.
I started the project in 2014 giving private talks to a class in London and I switched to YouTube in 2020 driven partly by lockdown. Please feel free to use the talks and the notes but don’t blame me for any mistakes and please double check everything yourself. Humans can make mistakes as well as AI systems.
In 2023 I started to use ChatGPT as an assistant to help me research the talks and my goal now is to completely replace myself by the end of 2026. To achieve this I will fully automate the research, production and even giving the talks using AI. This ties together my academic background which was initially in AI in the 1970s and more recently in art history in the 2000s.
This is my biography and the best way to contact me is to comment on my YouTube channel.
00 Introduction
00-01 200 Views of Western Art
This is an entertaining podcast produced by Google NotebookLM of 200 Views of Western Art:
01 The Earliest Art
01-01 The Earliest Art (notes)
02 Egyptian Art 3,000-300 BC
02-01 Egyptian Art Old & Middle Kingdoms (notes)
02-02 Egyptian Art New Kingdom (notes)
03 Greek Art 2,000-450AD
03-01 The Invention of Antiquity (notes)
04 Roman Art 27BC – 450AD
05 Byzantine Art 500-1200
06 Celtic, Saxon and Viking Art 550-900
06-01 Celtic, Saxon and Viking Art (notes)
07 Medieval Art 800-1000
07-01 Medieval Art 800-1000 (notes)
08 Romanesque Art 1000-1300
08-01 Romanesque Art 900-1200 (notes)
09 Gothic and Netherlandish Art 1100-1500
09-01 Gothic Cathedrals (notes)
09-02 Gothic Art – Giotto (to be recorded)
09-03 Hieronymus Bosch (notes)
10 Renaissance Art 1400-1600
10-01 An Introduction to Renaissance Art (to be recorded)
10-02 The Renaissance Nude (notes)
10-03 Piero della Francesca (to be recorded)
10-04 Mantegna and Bellini (notes)
10-06 Botticelli Podcast (produced by Google NotebookLM)
Youtube video scheduled
10-07 Renaissance – Leonardo da Vinci (notes)
10-08 Raphael Podcast (produced by Google NotebookLM)
Youtube video scheduled
10-10 Titian Podcast (produced by Google NotebookLM)
10-11 Tintoretto Podcast (produced by Google NotebookLM)
10-12 Veronese Podcast (produced by Google NotebookLM)
11 Mannerism 1520-1600
11-01 The Extremes of Mannerism (notes)
12 Tudor and Stuart Art
12-01 Three Hundred Years of British Art (notes)
12-04a Tudor & Stuart Art – From Absolute Monarch to Civil War, 1540-1650
12-05 Tudor Art – Images of Elizabeth I: Fashion or Propaganda?
12-06 Tudor Art – Elizabethan Miniatures
12-07 Tudor Art – Secret and Puzzling Tudor Art
12-08 Tudor Art – How Art Helped Establish the Tudor Dynasty
12-09 Tudor Art – The Hidden History of Hampton Court
12-10 Tudor Art – Hans Holbein at the Court of Henry VIII
12-11 Tudor Art – The Wholesale Destruction of English Art
12-12 Stuart Art – Charles I: King and Collector
12-13 Stuart Art – How the Royal Collection was Mis-sold
12-14 Stuart Art – Inigo Jones: Man, Masques and Mansions
12-15 Stuart Art – Van Dyck and the Early Stuart Painters
13 Baroque Art 1600-1700
13-02 Baroque Art – Velasquez (to be recorded)
13-03 Baroque Art – Rubens (to be recorded)
13-04 Baroque Art – Rembrandt (to be recorded)
13-05 Baroque Art – Britain’s Love of Rembrandt
13-06 Baroque Art – Van Dyck (to be recorded)
14 Dutch Golden Age 1600-1700
14-01 The Dutch Golden Age (notes)
14-02 Vermeer’s Complete Works (Part 1) (notes)
14-03 Vermeer’s Complete Works (Part 2) (notes)
15 Academic Art 1600-1900
15-02 Academic Art – Nicolas Poussin (to be recorded)
15-03 Academic Art – William-Adolphe Bouguereau (to be recorded)
16 Restoration England 1660-1700
16-01 Restoration England – Introduction 1660-1800
16-02 Restoration England – The Power of Beauty in Restoration England
16-03 Restoration England – The Commonwealth to the Georgian Period
16-04 Restoration England – Charles II: Art and Power (to be recorded)
16-05 Restoration England – The Windsor and Hampton Court Beauties
16-06 Restoration England – Wren and the English Baroque
17 Eighteenth Century British Art
17-01 18thC British Art – The Georgian Period, 1730-1780
17-02a 18thC British Art – Hogarth His Life and Society
17-02b 18thC British Art – Hogarth’s World
17-02c 18thC British Art – Hogarth’s World (for Save the Children)
17-03 18thC British Art – Thomas Gainsborough
17-04 18thC British Art – Joshua Reynolds (to be recorded)
17-05 18thC British Art – George IV Art & Spectacle
17-06 18thC British Art – Revolutionary Times, 1780-1810
17-07 18thC British Art – The Royal Academy
17-08 18thC British Art – Zoffany and the Conversation Piece
17-09 18thC British Art – Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797)
18 Rococo Art 1700-1770
18-01 Canaletto (to be recorded)
18-02 François Boucher (to be recorded)
18-03 Jean-Honoré Fragonard (to be recorded)
19 Spanish Art
19-01 Spanish Art – Velázquez & the Spanish Golden Age
19-02 Spanish Art – A 10-Minute Guide to Velazquez (to be recorded)
19-03 Spanish Art – Goya 1746-1828 (to be recorded)
20 Neo-Classicism 1770-1830
20-01 Neo-Classical Art – Mary Moser
20-02 Neo-Classical Art – Angelica Kaufmann
20-03 Neo-Classical Art – Angelica Kauffman Version 2
20-04 Neo-Classical Art – Jacques-Louis David (to be recorded)
20-05 Neo-Classical Art – Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (to be recorded)
21 Romanticism 1790-1850
21-01 Romanticism – Parisian Life During the Revolution
21-02 Romanticism – Théodore Géricault (to be recorded)
21-03 Romanticism – Eugène Delacroix (to be recorded)
21-04 Romanticism – The Romantic Age of English Painting
21-05 Romanticism – William Blake
21-06 Romanticism – JMW Turner
21-07 Romanticism – Turner’s Modern World
21-08 Romanticism – John Constable
21-09 The Gothic and its Revival
21-10 Romanticism – Regency to Victorian, 1810-1840
22 Nineteenth-Century American Art
22-02 19thC American Art – Thomas Cole (to be recorded)
22-03 19thC American Art – Frederic Edwin Church (to be recorded)
23 Victorian Art
23-04 Victorian Art – The Art of the Industrial Revolution
23-05 Victorian Art – Children in Victorian Art
23-06 Victorian Art – The Politics of Early 19th Century Landscape
23-07 Victorian Art – Turner and Turnips
23-08 Victorian Art – Social Realism in Victorian Painting
23-09 Victorian Art – Social Realism and Victorian Morality
23-10 Victorian Art – The Deserving Poor
23-11 Victorian Art and Darwinian Beauty
23-12 Victorian Portrait Painting
23-13 Victorian Landscape Painting Part 1
23-14 Victorian Landscape Painting Part 2
23-17 Late Victorians,1890-1900
23-18 The Edwardians,1900-1910
23-19 Newlyn, Glasgow, Camden Town
23-20 Victorian Art – Fairy Painting
24 Photography
24-01 Photography – The Art of Victorian Photography
24-02 Pictorialism and Late Victorian Photography
24-04 Straight Photography 1907-1940 (to be recorded)
25 Pre-Raphaelites 1848-1880
25-01 Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood – Early Days
25-02 Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood – Later
25-03 The PreRaphaelites, 1840-1860
25-04 The Pre-Raphaelite Sisters
26 Nineteenth-Century French Art
26-01 Barbizon School (to be recorded)
26-02 French Realism & Gustav Courbet (to be recorded)
26-03 French Orientalism (to be recorded)
27 Impressionism 1860-1880
27-01 Édouard Manet (Podcast produced by Google NotebookLM)
27-02 Claude Monet (Podcast produced by Google NotebookLM)
27-04 Edgar Degas (to be recorded)
27-05 Camille Pissarro (to be recorded)
27-06 Auguste Renoir (to be recorded)
27-07 American Impressionism (to be recorded)
27-10 Impressionism Post-Impressionism and Fauvism
27-11 Sorolla – Spanish Master of Light
28 Aestheticism 1870-1890
28-01 Aesthetic Movement to Degeneration Part 1
28-02 Aesthetic Movement to Degeneration Part 2
28-03 The Aesthetic Movement,1860-1890
James McNeill Whistler (to be recorded)
29 Degenerate Art
29-01 Beardsley Decadence & Death
30 Post Impressionism 1880-1905
30-03 Paul Gauguin: His Life and Work
30-05 The Short Life of Amedeo Modigliani
31 Symbolism 1890-1920
31-01 Symbolism 1890-1920 (to be recorded)
32 Russian Art 1890-1930
33 Pointillism & Divisionism
33-01 Georges Seurat and Paul Signac (to be recorded)
34 Arts & Crafts
34-01 The Design Reform Movement
34-02 William Morris & The Arts & Crafts Movement
35 Art Nouveau 1890-1914
35-01 Art Nouveau – Gustav Klimt
35-03 Art Nouveau Charles Rennie Mackintosh
36 South American Art 1900-present
36-01 Frida Kahlo (Mexico, 1907-1954) (to be recorded)
36-02 Diego Rivera (Mexico, 1886-1957) (to be recorded)
36-03 Lygia Clark (Brazil, 1920-1988) (to be recorded)
36-04 Hélio Oiticica (Brazil, 1937-1980) (to be recorded)
37 Edvard Munch (1863-1944)
38 Modernism 1900-present
38-01 The 20th Century British Nude
38-02 Modernism – Picasso 1932
38-04 Modernism – 20th Century British Life Painting
38-05 Modernism – New Ways of Seeing
39 Ashcan School 1890-1920
39-01 George Bellows (to be recorded)
40 Les Fauves 1900-1907
40-01 André Derain (to be recorded)
40-02 Henri Matisse (to be recorded)
41 Cubism 1907-1918
41-01 Cubism Abstraction and the British Avant Garde
41-02 Pablo Picasso (to be recorded)
41-03 Georges Braque (to be recorded)
42 Expressionism 1900s-1930
42-01 What is Expressionism? (to be recorded)
43 Futurism 1909-1915
43-01 Futurism (to be recorded)
44 Vorticism 1913-1915
44-01 Vorticism and World War I Art
45 Abstract Art 1915-1940
46 Dada 1915-1922
46-01 Dada Surrealism and Expressionism
46-02 Marcel Duchamp (to be recorded)
47 Constructivism and Suprematism 1917-1921
47-01 Constructivism and Suprematism (to be recorded)
48 De Stijl 1917-1931
48-01 Piet Mondrian and De Stijl (to be recorded)
49 Bauhaus 1919-1933
49-01 Bauhaus (to be recorded)
50 Harlem Renaissance
51 American Realists & Modernism
51-01 American Realists – Edward Hopper
51-02 American Realists – Georgia O’Keeffe
52 British Art 1900-1950
52-01 British Art 1900-50 British Art 1900-1950
52-02 British Art 1900-50 – British Sculpture
52-03 British Art 1900-50 – The Great War and After,1910-1930
52-04 British Art 1900-50 – British Realists in the 1920s and 30s
52-05 British Art 1900-50 – Aftermath WWI Art
52-06 British Art 1900-50 – Return to Order Stanley Spencer
52-07 British Art 1900-50 – The Interwar Years,1930s
52-08 British Art 1900-50 – British Figurative Art
52-09 British Art 1900-50 – Gwen John
52-10 British Art 1900-50 – Augustus John
52-11 British Art 1900-50 – Laura Knight
52-12 British Art 1900-50 – World War 2 Art
53 Surrealism 1920-1930
The following is a conversation about Salvador Dalí was generated by Google’s NotebookLM. The voices and the conversation are completely AI generated.
54 Escher 1898-1972
54-01 Maurits Escher (to be recorded)
55 Art Deco 1920-1930
The following is a conversation about Tamara de Lempicka was generated by Google’s NotebookLM. The voices and the conversation are completely AI generated.
56 Magical Realism and New Objectivity 1925-1950
56-01 Magic Realism (to be recorded)
57 Abstract Expressionism and Colour Field Painting
57-01 Abstract Expressionism and Colour Field Painting (to be recorded)
57-02 Jackson Pollock (to be recorded)
57-03 Mark Rothko (to be recorded)
57-04 Willem De Kooning (to be recorded)
57-05 Kenneth Noland (to be recorded)
58 Pop Art 1950-1960
58-02 Pop Art Warhol and Hockney
59 Neo-Dada 1952-1960
59-01 Jasper Johns (to be recorded)
59-02 Robert Rauschenberg (to be recorded)
60 Recent Art
60-03 Postmodern Art, 1980-2000
60-04 British Art since 1950 Introduction
60-06 British Figurative Art since 1950
60-08 Conceptual Art & Minimalism
60-09 Video and Performance Art
60-10 Op Art & Bridget Riley (to be recorded)
60-11 Kinetic Art (to be recorded)
60-12 Land Art and Earth Art (to be recorded)
60-03 Neo-expressionism (to be recorded)
60-04 Installation Art (to be recorded)
60-05 Photorealism & Hyperrealism (to be recorded)
60-06 Arte Povera (to be recorded
61 Recent Artists
61-01 David Hockney (Podcast produced by Google NotebookLM)
61-02 Grayson Perry and Outsider Arty
61-03 Francis Bacon (to be recorded)
61-04 Lucian Freud (Podcast produced by Google NotebookLM)
61-05 Ai Weiwei (to be recorded)
61-06 Damien Hirst (to be recorded)
61-07 Tracey Emin (to be recorded)
61-08 Joseph Beuys (to be recorded)
61-09 Louise Bourgeois (to be recorded)
61-10 Antony Gormley (to be recorded)
61-11 Anish Kapoor (to be recorded)
61-12 Chris Ofili (to be recorded)
61-13 Bruce Nauman (to be recorded)
61-14 Paulo Rego (to be recorded)
61-15 Sarah Lucas (to be recorded)
61-16 Rachel Whiteread (to be recorded)
61-17 Banksy (to be recorded)
62 AI and Art
62-01 What is AI?
62-02 Can AI be Creative?
62-03 AI-Generated Art
62-04 Collaborative Art
62-05 Interactive Art and AI
62-06 Music Composition and AI
62-07 AI in Film and Animation
62-08 AI-Enhanced Photography and Image Editing
62-09 AI in Architecture and Design
62-10 AI in Literary Arts
62-11 AI and Art Criticism
62-12 Art Restoration and Preservation
62-13 AI in Digital and Video Games
62-14 NFTs and AI
62-15 AI in Art History
62-16 Ethical and Philosophical Questions
62-17 The Limits of AI
97 Forgery
97-01 Forgery – The Genius of Art Forgery
97-02 Forgery – The 12 Greatest Art Forgers (Part 1)
97-03 Forgery – The 12 Greatest Art Forgers (Part 2)
97-04 Forgery – Can You Spot a Fake (Parts 1 & 2)
98 Tate
98-03 Tate Britain in 60 Minutes
98-04 Tate Modern: Artist and Society
98-05 Tate Modern: In the Studio
98-06 Tate Modern: Materials and Objects
98-07 Tate Modern: Media Networks
99 General Topics
99-01 General – How to Read Paintings
99-02 General – Looking at Art
99-03 General – Too Good to Eat
99-04 General – Art at the Seaside
99-05 General – Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art
99-06 General – The Thames in Art
99-07 General – Venice – City of Water
99-08 General – Art Meets Science
99-09 The RA Summer Exhibition (Part 1)
99-09 The RA Summer Exhibition (Part 2)
99-10 General – The World’s Most Expensive Paintings
99-11 General – Children in Art SCF
99-12 My Top Ten Strangest Paintings
99-12 My Top Ten Strangest Painting (Podcast generated by Goggle’s NotebookLM)