National Gallery of Art | Audio

May 2014 - Kimberly A. Jones, associate curator, department of French paintings, National Gallery of Art. Although Edgar Degas's influence upon Mary Cassatt has long been acknowledged, the extent to which Cassatt shaped Degas's artistic production and prepared the way for his warm reception by American audiences is fully examined for the first time in the exhibition Degas/Cassatt. To celebrate the exhibition opening on May 11, 2014, at the National Gallery of Art, Kimberly A. Jones illustrates how the artists' deep friendship was founded on mutual respect and admiration for each other's talents, despite differences of gender and nationality. These two major figures of the impressionist movement shared a keen observer's eye, as well as an openness to experimentation. With a focus on the critical period from the late 1870s through the mid-1880s when Degas and Cassatt were most closely allied, the exhibition brings together some 70 works in a variety of media to examine the fascinating artistic dialogue that developed between the two. Degas/Cassatt is on view through October 5, 2014.

May 2014 - Fernando Marías, professor of art history, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid-RAH, and exhibition curator of The Greek of Toledo, Museo de Santa Cruz, Toledo. Recorded on March 22, 2014, at the National Gallery of Art, this symposium explores the art and legacy of Doménikos Theotokópoulos (known as El Greco, 1541-1614). The 400th anniversary of the artist is being celebrated by exhibitions and programming throughout 2014. Born on the Greek island of Crete, El Greco spent the majority of his adult life in Toledo, Spain, and became known as the Greek from Toledo. An international panel of El Greco scholars provides an in-depth study of the artist's career, focusing on his early years in Greece and Italy and his renowned work completed in Toledo. The Gallery is also presenting an exhibition titled El Greco: A 400th Anniversary Celebration from Washington Area Collections, on view from November 2, 2014, through February 16, 2015. This program was coordinated with and supported by SPAIN arts and culture.

May 2014 - Anthony Grafton, Princeton University. In this six-part lecture series entitled Past Belief: Visions of Early Christianity in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, Anthony Grafton focuses on the efforts of artists and scholars to recreate the early history of Christianity in a period of crisis in the church from the 15th to the 17th century. In this sixth lecture, entitled "Constantine and Conversion: The Roles of the First Christian Emperor," originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on May 11, 2014, Professor Grafton argues that in their retelling of the dramatic and exemplary life of Constantine, scholars and artists forged new forensic, historical, and multidisciplinary approaches. They used philological and antiquarian evidence to unpack a layered and incoherent body of evidence that exposed the apocryphal legends of what has been called an "inherited conglomerate." Protestant and Catholic writers concurred in their assessment that Constantine's reign marked a radical transformation of art and religion and was thus a historical moment of great consequence—yet one or two began to see Constantine in less dramatic terms, as the human, political figure that he was. The erudition and imagination of these scholars and artists in the early modern period produced sophisticated and acute views of the early church, from which we can still profit today.

May 2014 - In celebration of the recent gift of Andrew Wyeth's Wind from the Sea (1947)—one of the artist's most important paintings—the National Gallery of Art presents an exhibition focused on Wyeth's first full realization in tempera of the window as a recurring subject in his art. Andrew Wyeth: Looking Out, Looking In presents some 60 watercolors, drawings, and tempera paintings completed after Wind from the Sea. In honor of the exhibition opening on May 4, 2014, curators Nancy K. Anderson and Charles Brock discuss Wyeth's fascination with windows. During his long and productive career, the artist created more than 300 remarkable works that explore the formal and conceptual aspects of looking both in and out of windows. Spare, elegant, and abstract, these paintings are free of the narrative element inevitably associated with his better-known figural compositions. In the exhibition, works are grouped in suites of related images, illustrating the disciplined process of reduction and simplification that Wyeth consistently used in creating his window paintings. The resulting images are often rigorous in their formal construction but deeply personal in subject. The exhibition, organized by the National Gallery of Art, will be on view only in Washington through November 30, 2014.

May 2014 - Anna Deavere Smith, actress, playwright, and director, Anna Deavere Smith Works at the Aspen Institute; Robert Storr, chairman of FAPE's Professional Fine Arts Committee and dean of the Yale School of Art; Carrie Mae Weems, artist. Moderated by James Meyer, associate curator of modern art, National Gallery of Art. In collaboration with the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies (FAPE), the National Gallery of Art hosted a panel discussion on the role of artists in international diplomacy on May 7, 2014. Robert Storrs presents an overview of FAPE's recent acquisitions and installations for American embassies around the world. In a conversation moderated by Gallery curator James Meyer, actress and playwright Anna Deavere Smith and artist Carrie Mae Weems discuss the impact of creating and sharing their work in a global community.

May 2014 - Anthony Grafton, Princeton UniversityAnthony Grafton, Princeton University. In this six-part lecture series entitled Past Belief: Visions of Early Christianity in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, Anthony Grafton focuses on the efforts of artists and scholars to recreate the early history of Christianity in a period of crisis in the church from the 15th to the 17th century. In this fifth lecture, entitled "Martyrdom and Persecution: The Uses of Early Christian Suffering," originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on May 4, 2014, Professor Grafton shows that early Christian martyrs were seen as the core of the true church and thus were used in the Renaissance by Catholic and Protestant scholars alike to defend either the status quo or reform agendas. Visual and textual references to ancient and modern martyrs were tightly linked in this period. Ancient martyrdom resonated with both the devout and the radical at a time when the theater of violence created by the first ideological wars in Europe made martyrdom not a distant, but a living experience, melding past, present, and future.

May 2014 - Alicia Walker, assistant professor of the history of art, Bryn Mawr College. Held in conjunction with the exhibition Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections, on view from October 6, 2013, through March 2, 2014, at the National Gallery of Art, this symposium takes its name and perspective from art critic and novelist John Peter Berger's 1972 book Ways of Seeing. Noted scholars Glenn Peers, Bissera Pentcheva, William Tronzo, and Alicia Walker seek to place the Heaven and Earth exhibition objects in context by answering questions generated by Berger's book: What world did these objects constitute in Byzantium and how did they form it? What values did they embody or create? How were they used and understood? Conversely what world do these objects constitute for us now? How do we understand them? And most important, then and now, are these works considered art?

May 2014 - Felix Monguilot Benzal, docent, Borghese Gallery, Rome, and Kress Interpretive Fellow (2012 – 2013), National Gallery of Art. Recorded on March 22, 2014, at the National Gallery of Art, this symposium explores the art and legacy of Doménikos Theotokópoulos (known as El Greco, 1541-1614). The 400th anniversary of the artist is being celebrated by exhibitions and programming throughout 2014. Born on the Greek island of Crete, El Greco spent the majority of his adult life in Toledo, Spain, and became known as the Greek from Toledo. An international panel of El Greco scholars provides an in-depth study of the artist's career, focusing on his early years in Greece and Italy and his renowned work completed in Toledo. The Gallery is also presenting an exhibition titled El Greco: A 400th Anniversary Celebration from Washington Area Collections, on view from November 2, 2014, through February 16, 2015. This program was coordinated with and supported by SPAIN arts and culture.

April 2014 - Anthony Grafton, Princeton University. In this six-part lecture series entitled Past Belief: Visions of Early Christianity in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, Anthony Grafton focuses on the efforts of artists and scholars to recreate the early history of Christianity in a period of crisis in the church from the 15th to the 17th century. In this fourth lecture, entitled "Relics and Ruins: Material Survivals and Early Modern Interpretations," originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on April 27, 2014, Professor Grafton reveals Catholic and Protestant sensibilities as extremes that touched when scholars of both denominations feared the loss of tangible evidence of early Christian practice and ritual threatened in the course of modernization and destroyed in the wake of religious wars. Even as critical attitudes arose regarding the authenticity of these material remains, the past was seen in a new light in which they were acknowledged as witnesses to the pious traditions of the early church rather than as sources of corruption and deception.

April 2014 - Felix Monguilot Benzal, docent, Borghese Gallery, Rome, and Kress Interpretive Fellow (2012 – 2013), National Gallery of Art. Recorded on March 22, 2014, at the National Gallery of Art, this symposium explores the art and legacy of Doménikos Theotokópoulos (known as El Greco, 1541-1614). The 400th anniversary of the artist is being celebrated by exhibitions and programming throughout 2014. Born on the Greek island of Crete, El Greco spent the majority of his adult life in Toledo, Spain, and became known as the Greek from Toledo. An international panel of El Greco scholars provides an in-depth study of the artist's career, focusing on his early years in Greece and Italy and his renowned work completed in Toledo. The Gallery is also presenting an exhibition titled El Greco: A 400th Anniversary Celebration from Washington Area Collections, on view from November 2, 2014, through February 16, 2015. This program was coordinated with and supported by SPAIN arts and culture.

April 2014 - Glenn Peers, professor of art and art history, University of Texas, Austin. Held in conjunction with the exhibition Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections, on view from October 6, 2013, through March 2, 2014, at the National Gallery of Art, this symposium takes its name and perspective from art critic and novelist John Peter Berger's 1972 book Ways of Seeing. Noted scholars Glenn Peers, Bissera Pentcheva, William Tronzo, and Alicia Walker seek to place the Heaven and Earth exhibition objects in context by answering questions generated by Berger's book: What world did these objects constitute in Byzantium and how did they form it? What values did they embody or create? How were they used and understood? Conversely what world do these objects constitute for us now? How do we understand them? And most important, then and now, are these works considered art?

April 2014 - Bissera Pentcheva, associate professor of art and art history, Stanford University. Held in conjunction with the exhibition Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections, on view from October 6, 2013, through March 2, 2014, at the National Gallery of Art, this symposium takes its name and perspective from art critic and novelist John Peter Berger's 1972 book Ways of Seeing. Noted scholars Glenn Peers, Bissera Pentcheva, William Tronzo, and Alicia Walker seek to place the Heaven and Earth exhibition objects in context by answering questions generated by Berger's book: What world did these objects constitute in Byzantium and how did they form it? What values did they embody or create? How were they used and understood? Conversely what world do these objects constitute for us now? How do we understand them? And most important, then and now, are these works considered art?

April 2014 - Shelley Rice, arts professor, department of photography and imaging and department of art history, New York University. Organized in conjunction with Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris, this symposium held on December 6, 2013, at the National Gallery of Art offers new perspectives on art and urbanism in 19th-century Paris. An international panel of art, architectural, and literary historians address the transformation of 19th-century Paris in papers that focus on diverse topics including the representation of Parisian quarries in 19th-century photography, painting, and literature; the formative role of architect Gabriel Davioud in reshaping Paris; the use of photography to map the changing city; new modes of transportation that shape the experience and representations of the city; the impact of 19th-century photography of Paris on 20th-century film; and the relationship between Marville's urban documentation and contemporary photographic practice. Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris is on view at the Gallery through January 5, 2014.

April 2014 - Jeannene Przyblyski, provost and faculty, California Institute of the Arts. Organized in conjunction with Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris, this symposium held on December 6, 2013, at the National Gallery of Art offers new perspectives on art and urbanism in 19th-century Paris. An international panel of art, architectural, and literary historians address the transformation of 19th-century Paris in papers that focus on diverse topics including the representation of Parisian quarries in 19th-century photography, painting, and literature; the formative role of architect Gabriel Davioud in reshaping Paris; the use of photography to map the changing city; new modes of transportation that shape the experience and representations of the city; the impact of 19th-century photography of Paris on 20th-century film; and the relationship between Marville's urban documentation and contemporary photographic practice. Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris is on view at the Gallery through January 5, 2014.

April 2014 - Anthony Grafton, Princeton University. In this six-part lecture series entitled Past Belief: Visions of Early Christianity in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, Anthony Grafton focuses on the efforts of artists and scholars to recreate the early history of Christianity in a period of crisis in the church from the 15th to the 17th century. In this third lecture, entitled "Christian Origins and the Work of Time: Imagining the First Christians," originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on April 13, 2014, Professor Grafton extols the religious imagination of the humanists who plumbed the early sources of Christian and Jewish traditions in order to write histories of the early church, producing unprecedented and radical visions of Christian origins.