Tradition and Revolution: How Victorian Beauty Transformed Oxford – Ayla Lepine

Saturday 4 May | 4.30pm – 5.30pm
Sophia Sheppard Room, Magdalen College

Pre-Raphaelite artists and Gothic Revival architects took Oxford by storm in the nineteenth century. In this talk, The Reverend Dr Ayla Lepine – an art historian and the associate rector at St. James’s, Piccadilly – will explore the ways in which these remarkable people and ideas revolutionised modern eyes, hearts and minds.

Revd Lepine was Ahmanson Fellow in Religion and Art at the National Gallery in London.  Her MA and PhD at the Courtauld Institute of Art focused on the modern British responses to the Middle Ages, especially the Gothic Revival and Pre-Raphaelite movement.  She has held post-doctoral fellowships at the Courtauld and at Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music, and was Lecturer and Fellow at the University of Essex School of Philosophy and Art History.

MAGDALEN COLLEGE CHAPEL – CELEBRATING 550 YEARS
The foundation-stone of the College was sanctified on the fifth of May, 1474, by the venerable father Robert Toly, Bishop of St.  David’s, in his pontificals, and respectfully deposited in its place, the middle of the high altar, by president Tybard l.  The quarry of Hedington, which had been discovered in the reign of Henry the Third, was now in higher repute than that of Hinxey, and from it the stone for the edifice was taken.  We  find  Waynflete  contracting with  William  Orchyerd,  the  principal mason,  in  1475,  1478,  and  the  following year,  for  finishing  the  tower  over  the  gateway with  a  pyramid  sixteen  feet  high  above the  level  of  the  gutter;  for  crowning  the walls  of  the  chapel  and  hall  with  niched battlements,  for  a  coping  to  these  and  the library;  for  completing  the  chambers,  cloisters, and  other  imperfect  portions  of  the fabric;  and  for  fashioning  the  great  window of  the  chapel.

These special events held at Magdalen College Chapel are part of the commemoration of this significant anniversary.

Entrance to all is free
Booking essential