Watch “Rebellion & Romance: Art in the Age of Revolution” in your own time, at home
The 18th and 19th centuries were an age of dazzling splendour and violent upheaval. Empires crumbled, cities boomed, revolutions raged and society was reinvented again and again. Across Europe artists responded with visions that were bold, beautiful, radical, funny, unsettling and defiantly modern.
In this new series, Rose Balston traces this extraordinary journey. From the glittering canals of Canaletto’s Venice to the erotic golden shimmer of Klimt’s Vienna, we meet the painters who transformed how we see the world. Rose’s talks will explore the glamour and grit, politics and passion, beauty and rebellion of this extraordinary period of European art history. Each session reveals not just the art, but the people behind it: their loves, rivalries, scandals and dreams.
This is a story of reinvention – and the beginning of modernity itself.
14 January – Canaletto: Venice, Vice & the Grand Tour
Venice in the 18th century was a city in elegant decline — bankrupt, politically irrelevant, yet still intoxicating. English gentlemen flocked there to gamble, flirt, drink, fall in love and buy art by the suitcaseful. Chief among their prizes were the sparkling Venetian views of Giovanni Canaletto, whose luminous canvases allowed them to bring home a slice of La Serenissima: sunlit canals, shimmering reflections, dogs yapping, gondoliers calling, laundry whipping in the breeze.
In this session Rose will step into the world of theatre and tourism to discover why Canaletto became the superstar of the Grand Tour — and why his vision of Venice continues to seduce us today.
28 January – William Hogarth: Sex, Satire on the Streets of London
Hogarth takes us straight into the noise and chaos of Georgian London. His bitingly satirical scenes expose a city teeming with infidelity, drunkenness, gambling, corruption and tragedy — yet told with extraordinary wit. Rose will focus on Marriage A-la-Mode in the National Gallery, London, a masterclass in storytelling that tears into the hypocrisies of arranged marriage.
More than any artist of his age, Hogarth shows us the unvarnished truth of 18th century life. There is no greater visual dramatist — and no sharper observer of society — than the great William Hogarth.
11 February – Reynolds & Gainsborough: The Battle for Beauty
Sir Joshua Reynolds brought romance, drama and classical grandeur to portraiture with his invention of the “Grand Manner,” turning society portraiture into a weapon of prestige.Meanwhile Thomas Gainsborough unleashed his sitters in a flurry of magical brushwork — those “odd scratches and marks” that, by “a kind of magic,” transform into luminous faces and fabrics.
Fiercely competitive yet dazzlingly gifted, these two artists shaped the Golden Age of British portraiture. This is a story of rivalry, celebrity, and the creation of a national style.
14 February – Rococo Romance this Valentine’s Day
This Valentine’s Day Rose will be focusing on decadently saucy scenes from Madame de Pompadour’s France. She’ll explore how this indefatigable patron of the arts used painting and porcelain to promote her position with the Royal Court. We’ll explore the origins of the Rococo movement by looking at paintings by Watteau, before moving on to Boucher, Fragonard and porcelain from the Sèvres factory. We’ll uncover hidden meaning and fascinating tales of 18th century aristocratic life in France that typify the exuberant reign of Louis XV and the new Rococo style.
25 February – Jacques-Louis David: Art & Revolution
The French Revolution detonated the political order of Europe — and at its heart stood Jacques-Louis David, painter, politician, propagandist. With cool, classical precision, David crafted images that became icons of revolution, heroism and sacrifice.
This talk explores how David’s life, ambition and downfall were woven into the violent upheavals of 1789 and beyond, and how his art became the visual language of a new political age.
8 March – Women, Power and Paint: Striving for Equality in Revolutionary Paris
Alongside the French Revolution of 1789, a cultural revolution was also unfolding as the first generation of professional female painters stepped into the spotlight and challenged the foundations of artistic inequality. Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard stand out as extraordinary examples of women who forged successful careers in a world still shaped by male authority. They stormed the official institutions of their day and defied convention at every turn.
As we reflect on their achievements on International Women’s Day 2026, their story becomes even more resonant. In a moment of immense political and social upheaval, these artists used their talent and tenacity to claim space, demand visibility, and reshape the narrative of what women could accomplish.
We will consider the themes of the Royal Family as well as motherhood, but most of it, we’ll explore their self-portraits which serve as powerful declarations of identity and agency — proof that women artists could offer bold, original perspectives and help define a new artistic future.
11 March – Francisco Goya: Darkness, Doubt & the Birth of Modernity
Is Goya the last Old Master — or the first modern one? His career veers from glittering court portraitist to disillusioned witness of war, madness and human cruelty. Amid the horrors of the Peninsular War and a Spain ravaged by famine and disease, Goya tore through convention to ask radical new questions about humanity.
The results — terrifying, brilliant, and deeply moving — continue to speak to us with astonishing urgency. His art forces us to confront ourselves, and the world we’ve created.
1 April – John Constable: The Quiet Radical
Constable’s paintings may grace biscuit tins, but beneath their pastoral charm lies an artist of striking intensity — romantic, stubborn, fiercely committed to truth. His devotion to the English countryside, and his battles with the Royal Academy, shaped one of the great artistic rivalries of the era: Constable vs. Turner.
In this session we uncover the man behind the “quintessential English” façade — passionate, poetic and quietly revolutionary.
8 April – J.M.W. Turner: Storms, Sun & the Edge of Abstraction
If Constable’s achievements were quietly profound, Turner’s were loudly epic. Obsessed with storms, fire, energy and above all the sun, Turner pushed painting to the brink of abstraction. His critics mocked him; Ruskin hailed him as “the father of modern art.”
This is the wild story of an artist who spat on his canvases, worshipped light, shocked the Royal Academy, and turned landscape painting into an electric, emotional force.
22 April – The Pre-Raphaelites: Rebellion, Beauty & the Medieval Dream
Meet the rebellious students who detonated Victorian art. Rejecting industrial ugliness and Royal Academy convention, Millais, Rossetti and Holman Hunt looked back to a pre-Raphaelite world of clarity, symbolism and moral intensity.
Their paintings — rich in detail, poetry, sensuality and natural beauty — explore love, faith, gender and myth. Rose’s talk uncovers the dazzling, provocative world of the Brotherhood and the revolution their art sparked.
6 May – James McNeill Whistler: Aesthetics, Scandal & the Art of the Nocturne
Dandy, wit, outsider and provocateur, Whistler stood at the threshold of modernity. From his “Nocturnes” to his “Symphonies,” he insisted that art existed for beauty alone — infuriating John Ruskin, enthralling Oscar Wilde, and reshaping artistic taste on both sides of the Channel.
In this session we explore Whistler’s sense of colour and tone, his duels with critics, and his enormous influence on the future of modern art.
20 May – Klimt & Schiele: Gold, Desire & the Shock of the Modern
Vienna at the turn of the 20th century was a city of contradictions — opulent yet anxious, glittering yet fractured. In this charged atmosphere, Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele forged two of the most distinctive artistic voices of modernity.
Klimt dazzled the world with shimmering gold, eroticism and symbolism, creating icons of sensual beauty that scandalised polite society. Schiele, in contrast, stripped the human body to its rawest truth: twisted poses, burning eyes, a psychological intensity still startling today.
Together they reveal a world on the brink—where beauty and danger meet, and where modern art begins to confront the deepest questions of identity, sexuality and the self.
For speaking engagements, tour enquiries and other information, please email Rose on: rose@rosebalston.com.
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