N.B. This course is taught in Dutch.

This online course in German art history offers a fine overview of everything Germany has to offer in terms of visual arts and architecture. Over six lessons, Barry Heinrichs covers twenty centuries of German art and architectural history. The course features major German artists (such as Dürer, Friedrich and Kandinsky), but there is also room for surprises and new discoveries. Along the way, we discover that German art developed quite differently from that of Italy, France or the Netherlands. The country’s history, the influence of emperors and monarchs, the Reformation, industrialisation, two world wars and the division of Germany have time and again given rise to innovative art and surprising artists. This creates a coherent narrative in which painting, sculpture, architecture and history are constantly intertwined.

We begin with Trier’s Roman past and journey through the Gothic period to the German Renaissance of Dürer, Cranach and Holbein. This is followed by the Baroque, Rococo and Classicism, the Romanticism of Caspar David Friedrich and the domestic Jugendstil of the Biedermeier period. We see how, at the start of the twentieth century, Germany became a hotbed of innovation, with the German Expressionism of *Der Blaue Reiter* and *Die Brücke*, followed by the art banned under National Socialism. After the war, we explore the light art of Zero and the work of Joseph Beuys, and conclude with the raw Neo-Expressionism of Baselitz and Kiefer and the enigmatic painting of the Leipziger Schule. By the end of the course, you will have a good overview of the key highlights and surprises in German art history.

The lessons are organised as follows:

1. Germany’s Roman past (Trier), Carolingian and Ottonian art, Gothic art, the early German Renaissance (Grünewald, Dürer, Holbein)
2. German Renaissance (Dürer, Cranach and the Lutheran Reformation), Baroque, Rococo and Classicism (Asam, Balthasar Neumann, Schinkel)
3. Romanticism (Friedrich, Runge) and Biedermeier
4. From Realism to Expressionism: Menzel, Liebermann, Art Nouveau, Worpswede, Käthe Kollwitz, Max Beckmann, Der Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke
5. New Objectivity and Degenerate Art, the Bauhaus, post-war art: Zero and Joseph Beuys
6. German Neo-Expressionism, Capitalist Realism and the Leipzig School

How does that work online?

You’ll take this course online on your own computer or tablet. All you need is a good internet connection and sound. The tutor and images will then appear automatically on your screen. If you are unable to attend ‘live’, you can watch the lesson at a later time. You can therefore still enrol until after lesson 2 of the course.

Free trial lesson

Want to know if this course and taking it online is for you? You can take lesson 1 of this course as a free trial lesson without any obligations. You can register for this free trial lesson directly via the button below.