The Arts Society

Tickets: £10/ £5 Students on the door/ Free for Members of the Arts Society Cardiff

The Arts Society Cardiff is a friendly, flourishing organisation of some 180 members drawn from Cardiff and the surrounding area. Their members have a wide range of interests and everyone is welcome. They meet at 2pm on the second Thursday of each month (except July and August) in the comfortable and lively surroundings of Chapter Arts Centre to enjoy a varied programme of illustrated Lectures given by experts in their field.

Sept 12th 2024

From Downton to Gatsby: Jewellery and Fashion 1890 to 1929

The commission to produce jewellery for the series and film Downton Abbey inspired Andrew to create a talk based on this unique period. Jewellery and Fashion are often seen as two entirely separate and distinct fields of design, but this is very far from the case. In his talk, Andrew guides you through the extraordinary decades and events between 1890 and 1929, where the great couturiers collaborated with the finest of jewellers to produce jewels and clothes of outstanding quality and glittering opulence. Along with this, he illustrates the clients and patrons who commissioned the jewels and shows how they were worn with their sumptuous gowns.

Andrew Prince

Andrew Prince has had a passion for jewellery since he was a small child. In August 1987, two weeks after his 16th birthday, Andrew started work in London’s Bond Street, for The Antiques Roadshow expert Ian Harris. Under his guidance, Andrew developed an appreciation for jewels that were valued for their quality of design and craftsmanship, rather than for how much the stones in the piece were worth. He then joined the renowned contemporary jeweller Elizabeth Gage and worked with her on design and production. She was to have an enormous influence on Andrew's sense of what was possible within the realm of jewellery design. Private commissions then started to trickle in. The trickle turned into a flood, as celebrities such as Michael Jackson (a large crystal and pearl shoulder jewel) and Shirley Bassey (necklaces) were seen wearing Andrew's creations. In 2002, the V&A commissioned a collection of jewels to accompany the resplendent Tiaras, Past and Present exhibition which became one of their most popular exhibits. The exposure gained by the show led to Andrew's jewellery appearing in film: in 2005 for Mrs Henderson Presents; in 2009 for The Young Victoria; in 2012 for Downton Abbey for the third series.

Oct 10th 2024

Arts of the Zen: Aesthetics of Simplicity

Zen Buddhism has exerted a profound influence on the formation of Japanese visual culture since its introduction in the 13th century to the present day. Zen Buddhism’s emphasis on the practice of meditation, self-discipline, and the austere lifestyle appealed to the patrons from the warrior class, and the Zen teaching became the dominant philosophical basis that supported the development of the distinctive aesthetics of the 15th and 16th centuries. Many of the art forms, such as ink painting, dry landscape gardens and Noh drama developed during this period.

Meri Arichi

Dr Meri Arichi studied Art History in London and Florence, and worked at Christie’s in Kings Street, London, from 1989 to 1993. She completed Post-graduate Diploma in Asian Art (1994), MA (1996) in History of East Asian Art, and PhD in Japanese Art (2003) at the School of Oriental and African Art, University of London (SOAS). She taught History of Japanese Art in the Department of History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS as a Senior Teaching Fellow from 2007 to 2016. She worked as a tutor for the Post-graduate Diploma in Asian Art course at the British Museum from 2001 to 2007, and at SOAS from 2008 to 2016. She contributes to the Diploma course at SOAS as a guest speaker now. She has run course at the V&A, Birkbeck College, the British Museum and the Coutauld Institute Summer School. She is Trustee of the Japanese Women’s Association in Great Britain and the Chair of the Circle of Japanese Art London.

Nov 14th 2024

Joaquin Sorolla; the master of light

Joaquin Sorolla hated darkness. Claude Monet once said that painting in general did not have enough light in it. Sorolla could not agree more. Sorolla believed painters could never reproduce sunlight as it really is, and he could only “approach the truth of it”. Most of us when standing in front of one of his canvases would agree he was the master of light. He managed to capture like no other the light of the Mediterranean beaches he loved and the energy of Spanish life. He painted what he saw, quickly, to capture that precise moment. As he said "I could not paint at all if I had to paint slowly.

Arantxa Sardina

Arantxa Sardina is an official volunteer guide at Tate, covering the permanent collection and some of the temporary exhibitions at both galleries, Modern and Britain. She completed her MA in Art History at the Open University in 2019, where her dissertation focused on fellow Spaniard Joaquin Sorolla, the master painter of Mediterranean light and a friend of John Singer Sargent. She is also an enthusiastic amateur musician, playing the cello and the piano and a lover of opera and ballet.