History Through Art For Adults: COMBINING THE LESSONS OF HISTORY WITH THE VISUAL POWER OF ART,

A special message from Scott Powell of Powell History:

Greetings!
After literally dozens of research trips to museums across America and the world; after scouring the art libraries of local universities; after performing hundreds of hours of on-line searching...I have put together an unmatched collection of hundreds of digital reproductions of fantastic visual art that depicts history.

Some of the images we'll be examining in my upcoming course, History Through Art for Adults, you no doubt already know, such as Bonaparte Crossing the Alps by Jacques-Louis David or Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emmanuel Leutze.  But over the next week, and surely beyond that, I'll be giving you a taste of some of the exciting finds that I've made that are going to make this course the favorite of my students!

Here's the first installment.

Who is this person?

If you know some history, then even the visual excerpt of this fantastic painting (detail, left) by Gaston Bussiere (1908) may already have revealed to you who this historical character is. The warm glow of godly light intensifies the sense we get of the religious experience she is undergoing.

But what is the message she hears?

The message is one of
supernatural duty, of mystical patriotism, which directs the woman-child to become the liberator of a nation and the harbinger of the decline of Feudal Christendom.

By her strange energy and mystifying feats, this youthful creature becomes the focal point for the hopes of an entire people, the rallying figure of the armies of a nation wishing to fulfill itself, against the very dictates of the Feudal framework in which it arose.

In her quest, the young woman is astoundingly successful. Artist Jules-Eugene Lenepveu captures her during the culminating moment of her meteroic career, in his painting of c.1888 (detail, right).
The forces of which she is the greatest symbolic representative, however, are those that will destroy her young life.

Betrayed by those whom she empowered, the pious creature is left to the fate which the unjust framework of Feudal Christendom logically reserves for those it cannot assimilate.

Of course you know who it is, don't you?  The maid of Orleans, the harbinger of the fall of Feudal Christendom: Joan of Arc.

In History Through Art, you will see her and understand her place in history as you never have before!

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Want to see what else is in store in the HistoryThroughArt curriculum? Here's a full curriculum summary.
Classes start September 2nd, so don't delay your registration!

Sincerely,
Scott Powell
Powell History

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"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
--George Santayana