- Oxford Academia at:
- 2025 Sessions:
July 19–August 1
- Eligibility:
Completing grades 9–12
Motivated rising 9th graders will also be considered
- Typical Seminar Size:
As the epicenter of Western artistic development, Paris is home to the most renowned artworks in the world and iconic architectural landmarks. In this field-based seminar, explore art history from prehistory through today, using the city as your classroom. In the blockbuster galleries of the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay, and the quieter corners of the Brancusi studio and Musée Jacquemart-Andre, follow movements that shaped history and inspired generations of artists. Focusing on movements that were nourished in France, discuss how they reflect the history of Paris and its people. Trace the development of religious imagery in altarpieces and tapestries at the Musée de Cluny and on the façade of Notre-Dame. Cross the Seine on the city’s Renaissance bridges, studying the masquerons on the Pont Neuf and the ornaments on Saint-Eustache. See the world through the eyes of the Impressionists at the Musée de l’Orangerie, walk in the footsteps of Renoir, Dalí, Picasso, Modigliani, and van Gogh, and see where many of their groundbreaking works were completed. Take day trips to experience the opulent classicism of Versailles and the quiet beauty of Monet’s garden at Giverny, and visit studios of contemporary Parisian artists challenging the role of traditional art history in their work.
FEATURED FACULTY
Paris-Sorbonne University – Paris IV, M.A., Art History
University of Poitiers, Professor of British Art & Literature
Isabelle graduated from the Sorbonne in Paris and defended her Ph.D. on Victorian literature at the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle, before getting her “Habilitation à diriger des recherches” (allowing her to supervise doctoral candidates) from the University of Poitiers, France. While working on British literature, she also went on with further training in art history, and wrote a short thesis on a prominent 19th century English art collector, George Salting. Ever since, she has worked on the British circles of art amateurs and collectors and on the European fascination for the Orient at the end of the 19th century—a subject on which she organized several international conferences, published many articles, co-edited two books, and recently wrote a monograph, published by Routledge. Thus art history has always been at the center of her academic work (and of her life, since her husband is a painter). Born and bred in Paris, although she also lived in London and Madrid and traveled extensively in Europe, she knows and loves the French capital and will be delighted to rediscover it with students. Isabelle is currently Professor of British Art and Literature at the University of Poitiers. She is fluent in English and Spanish, studied the bases of the Persian language and, as her friends once put it in a song, “knows (almost) everything about museums, including those that are closed!”