Dr. Elizabeth Marlowe of Colgate University, NY
Fri. Oct. 2 07:00 PM
- Fri. Oct. 2 09:30 PM
Contact: Allison Surtees a.surtees@uwinnipeg.ca
Location: Eckhardt Gramatte Hall, University of Winnipeg
The 2015-16 Bonnycastle Lecture will be given by Dr. Elizabeth Marlowe, Associate Professor of Art and Art History at Colgate University in Hamilton, NY. She earned an MPhil and PhD at Columbia University and specializes in ancient art and the city of Rome, particularly from the late antique period, and modern uses of the classical past. Her research examines the relationship between artistic forms and ideological content in the art of the ancient world, and explores the reception and reuse of ancient monuments in the modern world, by scholars, collectors, governments and various other interest groups. She is a past recipient of the prestigious Rome Prize Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome. Her recent book, Shaky Ground: Context, Connoisseurship and the History of Roman Art (Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2013) has received wide praise within the discipline. This work urges a new approach to the study of Roman art, exploring the complex relationship between context and connoisseurship, an approach which fits perfectly with the goals of the conference being held at UWinnipeg, “Methodologies in Ancient Material Culture.”
This lecture will be held in Eckhardt-Gramatte Hall on Friday Oct. 2nd at 7pm, and will be followed by a reception. Admission is free and all faculty, staff, and students, as well as the general public, are welcome to attend. The lecture will be accessible to a general audience as well as specialists.
Lecture title and brief description:
"'The Ugliest Statue at the Met' and the Limits of Interpretation"
This talk will consider how art historians and scholars of the ancient world have approached one particular, canonical statue. Made of bronze, the statue depicts an unusually large, barrel-torsoed, pin-headed nude male figure, and is ostensibly dated to the third century CE. The figure’s unusual proportions and unattractive appearance have often been understood as signs of the beginning of the end of the classical era. For that reason, the statue has played an important role in the scholarly literature on the transition to medieval styles. This talk will offer a critical examination of that interpretation, and present an alternative one as well.