FORA.tv

Jonathan Brown: "Velázquez: Master and Masterpieces"

Link to video of Jonathan Brown lecture

In the belief that personal circumstances play an important part in shaping the work of art historians, Jonathan Brown reflects on his career as a specialist in Hispanic art. He will also take a fresh look at Las Meninas (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid), discussing how it was understood by Velázquez's contemporaries at the court of Philip IV. The lecture coincides with the publication of Brown's In the Shadow of Velázquez: A Life in Art History.
 

Anne L. Poulet: "Sculpture of Houdon and Clodion: Reflections of Antiquity"

Link to video of Anne L. Poulet lecture

Houdon and Clodion are among the greatest French sculptors of the late eighteenth century, as well as the creators of works featured in the Frick's special exhibition Enlightenment and Beauty. As students in Rome in the 1760s, both were schooled in Greek and Roman culture and studied vast collections of antiquities. Yet what they absorbed from their training and the paths they chose to follow were quite different. This lecture explores the sculptors' respective sources of inspiration and patronage. This lecture is made possible by the Robert H.

David Ekserdjian: "Renaissance & Baroque Bronzes from the Hill Collection"

Link to video of David Ekserdjian lecture

This lecture presents an overview of the Hill Collection exhibition, which combines celebrated masterpieces with new discoveries in the field of bronzes. It traces the history of the bronze statuette from the late fifteenth to the eighteenth century in Italy and northern Europe. Particular emphasis is placed on the works of preeminent sculptors such as Giambologna, Tetrode, and Adriaen de Vries. This lecture is made possible by the Robert H. Smith Family Foundation.
 

Arthur Wheelock: "The Making of an Icon: Girl with a Pearl Earring"

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At the end of the nineteenth century, Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring sold for a pittance, an unknown work by an artist who was only beginning to achieve recognition. Today it is revered as a great masterpiece, so famous that it is recognizable by its title alone, with the name of its maker being almost superfluous. This lecture examines the reasons this image resonates so profoundly with contemporary audiences.
 

Barry Bergdoll: "d'Angers and the Architectural Stakes of Romantic History"

Link to video of Barry Bergdoll lecture

This lecture examines David d'Angers's monumental commissions of the 1820s and 1830s in relation to the Bourbon Restoration, the July Monarchy, and the politics of public memory. It also will consider the sculptor's relationship to the period's architects and their collaborative work on the transformation of urban space in Paris.
 

Edwin Buijsen: "Behind the Scenes of Everyday Life: Dutch Genre Painting"

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Dutch genre paintings of the seventeenth century show individuals in domestic settings going about their daily activities, such as letter writing, eating and drinking, or making music. Many of these seemingly straightforward scenes, however, contain moral lessons that are difficult for us to decipher today.

Emilie Gordenker: "Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis"

Link to video of Emilie Gordenker lecture

The Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis combines a truly great collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings with the spectacular setting of a seventeenth-century city palace in the historic center of The Hague. This lecture traces the history of the Mauritshuis's collection and the building that houses it, and offers a behind-the-scenes view of the current renovation and expansion of the museum.
 

Kevin Birth: "Clocks, Politics, and Changing Times"

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The clocks in the exhibition Precision and Splendor reflect some of the major debates about time that have occurred over the last five hundred years. This lecture discusses the relevance of the exhibited clocks  to our understanding of some of the great historic changes in timekeeping, including the Gregorian calendar and the Counter-Reformation, the Copernican revolution, the replacement of solar time with mean time, and the French Revolution's failed experiment with decimal time.
 

 

Dorothy Johnson: "Vital Signs: The Art of David d'Angers"

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Dorothy Johnson explores the significance of David d'Angers's public and private works, from medallions and busts to statues and statuettes of famous figures. In particular, she considers the ways in which David read and interpreted the world and the individuals who helped shape it as visible signs of a hidden language of nature and culture.
 

Emerson Bowyer: "Sculpting History: David d'Angers and the Romantic Monument"

Link to video of Emerson Bowyer lecture

In a celebrated passage from his Histoire de la Révolution Française, historian Jules Michelet (1833–1867) asserted that the French Revolution left no lasting monuments, only empty space. Pierre-Jean David d’Angers (1788–1856), perhaps the greatest sculptor of the early nineteenth century, made it his life’s work to fill that void. This lecture follows David’s attempts to reinvigorate and adapt the notion of a historical monument to the new social and political landscape of modernity.

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