Variations on a Theme: Art & Music in Early Baroque Europe
On campus
Tuesday 8 鈥 Friday 11 September 2026
Dr Sheila McTighe and Toby Carr
拢545
Course Description
In early Baroque Europe, music and the visual arts overlapped in their patronage, audiences, and subject-matter; the taste for new music often merging with the taste for fine art. By contrast, musicians and artists grew apart in social status, with artists at court trailing behind their musical counterparts.听 Being able to play an instrument or sing for one鈥檚 prince was a distinct advantage and women painters in particular, like Artemisia Gentileschi in Florence or Sofonisba Anguissola in Madrid, could find a niche at court under the guise of performance.
Yet music and the visual arts also grew together in their theory and practice in this period, when analogies and rivalries between the arts were a popular subject for discussion.听 Could poetry, or painting, or indeed music most powerfully tell a story that would move its audience?听 Should music鈥檚 effect be boosted by being closely allied to the poetic text it accompanied? Or was such 鈥榳ord painting鈥 alien to the abstract nature of music? Such considerations had a direct effect on the performance of music and the display of art works in private collections. Courtly patronage certainly encouraged the merger of the arts, as seen in enormous multi-media spectacles for noble weddings, and this was mirrored by the counter-reformatory Church. The rise of the Oratorian movement in Rome, with its ties to Caravaggio, was one such context in which music, painting and poetic texts were deployed to captivate the Roman public and convert it to a new form of devotion.
Our course combines lectures, gallery visits, and live musical performances, to present works by Heinrich Sch眉tz, Barbara Strozzi, Claudio Monteverdi, Henry Purcell, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi and Nicolas Poussin, among others.
Lecturers' Biographies
Dr Sheila McTighe听has written and lectured extensively about early modern art. She is an independent art historian based in London, researching and writing about paintings and prints, including the works of Nicolas Poussin, Caravaggio, Sofonisba Anguissola, Giovanna Garzoni, Annibale Carracci and Jacques Callot. Her interests focus on the study of seventeenth-century naturalism and the depiction of everyday life in Southern Europe, particularly in the medium of print, and the movements of artists and printmakers between Italy, France and England. She has taught in the US, at Cornell and Columbia University, and from 1998-2020 at the 麻豆视频 where she trained a long line of outstanding research students.听 Her most recent book is听Representing from Life in Seventeenth-century Italy听(2020). Work in progress also includes the translation of Poussin鈥檚 letters, which are one of the most important sources for early modern art, but which have never been translated into English.
Lutenist and guitarist Toby Carr is known as a versatile and engaging artist, working with some of the finest musicians in the business. Having studied at Trinity Laban and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, he is now in demand as a soloist, chamber musician and continuo player, his playing has been described as 鈥榮ensuous and vivid鈥 (The Guardian), 鈥楨loquent鈥 (BBC Music Magazine) and 鈥楳esmerising鈥 (Opera Today). Toby has performed with most of the principal period instrument ensembles in the UK and beyond, as well as with many symphony orchestras, opera companies and ballet companies. Notable recordings include听De Pasi贸n Mortal with Nicholas Mulroy and Elizabeth Kenny (Linn),听Drop not, mine eyes听with Alexander Chance (Linn) and听Battle Cry with Helen Charlston (Delphian), winner of both BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone Awards in 2023. Toby is a professor at the Guildhall school of Music & Drama, across the strings and historical performance departments. He is delighted to share his passion for chamber music and collaboration with the next generation of musicians