Accessibility statement

Victorian Art - CED00010C

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  • Department: Centre for Lifelong Learning
  • Credit value: 10 credits
  • Credit level: C
  • Academic year of delivery: 2023-24
    • See module specification for other years: 2022-23

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Summer Term 2023-24

Module aims

The Victorian period was an era of political, social, technological and cultural change in Britain. Developments in the visual arts attest to the nation’s acute sense of its own modernity, whether this ‘progress’ was construed in a positive light or not. This course will examine Victorian art from a variety of cultural and historical perspectives, situating it within contemporary artistic and social debates. Each seminar session will explore individual artworks in detail, focusing on key works by many of the principal artists, and from many important movements of the period. Although the course is principally concerned with the medium of painting, we will also take account of corresponding developments in architecture, sculpture and photography and consider the extent to which these various media contributed to a collective cultural agenda. In order to provide a balance between consideration of the chief artistic personalities of the period, and the cultural and social debates with which they engaged, the seminars will use a number of different art-historical approaches.

Module learning outcomes

Upon successful completion of the module, students should be able to demonstrate:

  • A familiarity with the most important artistic figures and movements in the period
  • An understanding of the development of British art in the period
  • An understanding of the ways in which art operated within the urban culture of Victorian London
  • An understanding of how painting intersected with the other visual arts in the period (ie. photography, architecture, sculpture) within a broader visual culture
  • A sense of the development of an ‘avant-garde’ art in Britain and its relationship with the Royal Academy
  • An ability to organise visual and written data.

Indicative assessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 100

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 100

Module feedback

The tutor will give regular individual verbal and written feedback throughout the module on work submitted.

The assessment feedback is as per the university’s guidelines with regard to timings.

Indicative reading

  • Richard D. Altick, Victorian people and Ideas (1973)
  • Tim Barringer, The Pre-Raphaelites (1998)
  • Deborah Cherry, Painting Women: Victorian Women Artists (1993)
  • David Peters Corbett and Lara Perry (eds.), English Art 1860-1914: Modern Artists and Identity (2000)
  • Paula Gillett, Worlds of Art: Painters in Victorian Society (1990)
  • Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital (1975) and The Age of Empire (1987)
  • Lynda Nead, Victorian Babylon: People, Streets and Images in Nineteenth-Century London (2000)
  • Elizabeth Prettejohn (ed.), After the Pre-Raphaelites: Art and Aestheticism in Victorian England (1999)
  • Colin Trodd and Rafael Cardoso Denis (eds.), Art and the Academy in the Nineteenth Century
  • Malcolm Warner, The Victorians: British Painting, 1837-1901 (1997)
  • Christopher Wood, Victorian Panorama: Paintings of Victorian Life (1976)


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University constantly explores ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary. In some instances it may be appropriate for the University to notify and consult with affected students about module changes in accordance with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.