Recently members of the Year 10 Athenaeum were treated to two excellent lectures on Art History by members of the Lower Sixth. The Sixth Formers had prepared these talks as part of the national “Articulation” competition, in which they had to speak for 10 minutes on a piece of art of their choice.
Phoenix chose to talk about “At the Cradle” by Fritz Schnitzler 1902 and Sam spoke about “Paradiso Canto 31” by Gustave Dore.
Both students gave a fascinating exposition of their chosen works, combining helpful historical context with a very astute and sophisticated analysis of both the compositional and technical aspects of the works.
References to other works in order to highlight similarities of themes but the differing approaches to representing those themes was most instructive.
The presenters spoke with knowledge and passion and it is to be hoped have inspired some of the members of the Athenaeum to enter the Articulation competition which is available for their age group.