Join us from the comfort of your home as we present individual programs, multi-part courses, and studio arts classes on Zoom, inspired by the Smithsonian's research, collections, and exhibitions.
Explore the basis of abstraction by studying color, line, and shape as they relate to composition. Learn to create exciting, innovative works of art, using a series of drawing and painting exercises designed to examine nontraditional ways of handling traditional materials and subject matter.
Explore the basics of color theory, including temperature, value, and harmony-creating color schemes. In hands-on projects, learn to use a color wheel with tinting and toning, color charts, and color harmony studies.
Using watercolor, learn the strategies Morisot, Turner, Monet, and Cézanne employed to harness light in their images. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
Ernest Hemingway’s 1952 novella The Old Man and the Sea received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was also singled out when Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Literature professor Joseph Luzzi guides the audience through a close reading of this masterpiece, highlighting Hemingway’s brilliant characterization, detailed depictions of the natural world, and inquiry into the relationship between the human and animal worlds.
Enjoy a unique opportunity to explore four of England’s most beloved cities, each possessed of intriguing history, magnificent architecture, rare treasures, and famous residents. From York’s bustling medieval streets and Oxford’s beautiful colleges to the splendid vistas of Cambridge and the Georgian elegance of Bath, cultural historian Lorella Brocklesby showcases what has long made these cities unforgettable.
Through the 1950s and 1960s, the world witnessed a first in its history: Two global superpowers armed with enough thermonuclear weapons to destroy the planet several times over. While many Americans repeated the idea that nuclear war was too terrible to contemplate, a group of scholars and theorists within the defense and policy worlds thought deeply and carefully about how to wage—and win—such a conflict should it ever erupt. Historian Chris Hamner examines the thinking of scholars like Herman Kahn and those at RAND Corporation as they puzzled out how to deter World War III or, failing that, how the U.S. could emerge victorious—as well as how to understand what everyday Americans were thinking about the monstrous possibility of nuclear war.
On April 15, 2019, the world watched as Notre-Dame de Paris withstood a devastating fire. But the great Gothic cathedral itself has watched over its city for nearly a thousand years, from the beginning of its construction in 1163 to the French Revolution when its statues of kings were beheaded to witnessing the adversities of World War II. With its reopening scheduled for December, Met Cloisters curator emerita Barbara Drake Boehm traces the history of this monument through times of turbulence and triumph.
Discover the world’s deadliest caterpillars; a butterfly that shares its world with polar bears at one extreme and penguins at the other; and screaming moths that can jam the sonar of predatory bats. Wildlife documentary filmmaker Steve Nicholls looks at why it seems there’s no end to the tricks that evolution has come up with as it turned the Lepidoptera into one of the most successful of all insect groups.
Take felting to the next level in this 3D exploration of the art. Combine felting and origami techniques to create a collapsible, space-saving “feltrigami” bag.
One of the greatest battles of the late 16th century was the clash of two women who were cousins and rivals in power: Elizabeth I, Queen of England, and Mary, Queen of Scots. In a world ruled by men, they took center stage in a battle to the death over a prize only one could claim—the throne of England. Tudor and Renaissance scholar Carol Ann Lloyd-Stanger explores how their epic political and personal battles finally led to a unified rule in England.
