Masterworks: Uncovering Hidden Meaning Within Great Paintings

Art has never been created for "the ages." Paintings we now regard as timeless masterpieces were created for viewers from the artist's own time and circumstances.

Consequently, much of their embedded meaning is often lost on today's audiences.

This course lifts the veil by providing cultural context and historical perspective for classical paintings, putting modern viewers more in the mindset of each artist's contemporary audience.

The course is structured around elemental themes that have inspired some of the Western world's most magnificent and enigmatic works of art: Art of Creation, divine and artistic; Art of Transformation, religious and spiritual; and Art of Mythology, by Renaissance artists and Classicist masters.

Each class session will focus on four masterpieces devoted to one of these themes, including Botticelli’s Primavera, Michelangelo's Creation of Adam , Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son , and Caravaggio’s Conversion of Saint Paul .

The course concludes by contextualizing groundbreaking works by modern painters like Claude Monet and Mark Rothko.