HELD TUESDAY DECEMBER 1ST 2020 AT 20:00 CET
DUE TO COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS THE EVENT WAS ORGANIZED ONLINE IN COLLABORATION WITH THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ANTIQUITIES IN LEIDEN
Prof. Caroline Vout
BEYOND CLASSICAL ART
A LECTURE ON THE DIVERSITY
OF GREEK AND ROMAN SCULPTURE
When we think of ‘classical art’, we think of nudity, naturalism, shiny white marble. But neither ‘classical art’, nor the beauty, purity and virtue that we associate with it, are obvious. Rather, they have accrued over time. This lecture focuses on what ‘classical art’ omits, on unexceptional but important sculptures that challenge our vocabularies and ask for new frameworks. In privileging sculpture, we are again being selective. But it is sculpture that has dictated our artistic engagement with the Greeks and Romans, and sculpture that is, therefore, best placed to usher in a new chapter. This is not only about extending Greek and Roman sculpture’s remit to include the ‘ugly’, ‘aniconic’, ‘demotic’, colour; it is about reassessing its interactions with ‘foreign’ traditions (the Egyptian, Eastern, Indian etc). Where does ‘classical art’ sit between the local and global, and in the midst of the archaeological? Does ‘classical art’ have a future?
Caroline Vout is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge, and Byvanck Chair of Classical Archaeology at Leiden University. She is a historian and art historian who publishes widely on Greek and Roman art and its reception, ancient history, and Latin literature. She also curates exhibitions. Her monographs include Classical Art: a Life History from Antiquity to the Present, Sex on Show: Seeing the Erotic in Greece and Rome, The Hills of Rome: Signature of an Eternal City, and Power and Eroticism in Imperial Rome. She is currently writing a book on bodies in the Greek and Roman periods.
Program
Welcome and introduction by Demetrius Waarsenburg (BABESCH Foundation)
BABESCH Byvanck Award, presented to Federico Ugolini (University of Haifa)
BABESCH Byvanck Lecture by Caroline Vout (University of Cambridge, Leiden University)
Discussion, moderated by Eric Moormann (Radboud University Nijmegen)
