Tuesday, May 6, 9:30 – 10:30am
Ensemble view, Room 19, south wall, Philadelphia. © The Barnes Foundation
Free for Barnes students and alumni; registration required.
About the Talk
Art historian Larry Silver presents this year’s Violette de Mazia Lecture, “The Primacy of the Object: From Left to Right.”
In this lecture, Silver will share what more than 50 years of teaching and close looking have revealed about the unwritten laws followed by artists throughout history. The most important rule relates to our training as readers: simply put, just as we learn to read from left to right, painters mirror that habit when composing images. This holds true for religious pictures, landscapes, and even still lifes, which Silver will illustrate with examples created over five centuries. He will also investigate how the dominant trait of right-handedness in the general population affects pictorial layouts, from images of the Last Judgment to pendant portraits of husbands and wives. Silver will apply his theories to works from many major American collections.
About the Program
Presented by the Barnes–de Mazia Adult Education Program, the annual Violette de Mazia lecture celebrates the Barnes’s legacy of adult education and unites generations of students who share a commitment to lifelong learning and the belief in art’s power to ignite human potential. We are proud to announce that, in 2024, our adult education program hosted 2,400 students and awarded 360 scholarships.
If you cannot attend the lecture but would like to support adult education at the Barnes, consider making a donation. Donate online or call us at 215.278.7110.
The Barnes–de Mazia Adult Education Program and scholarships from the Richard J. Wattenmaker Scholarship Fund are made possible, in part, by generous support from Betsy Z. and Edward E. Cohen.
Special thanks to underwriting from the Noreika family in recognition of Dr. Albert Barnes’s educational mission.
Speaker
Larry Silver
Silver is the James and Nan Wagner Farquhar Professor Emeritus of the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania. A specialist in old master paintings, he has written about artists such as Bosch, Bruegel, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Dürer and organized several exhibitions of old master prints. Recently, he taught the class Bosch and Bruegel at the Barnes. He previously taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and Northwestern University.
Go Further
Andrew Wyeth in Context: Art, Place, and Practice
Consider the creative legacy of the American artist, with special insights from his granddaughter. Instructors: William L. Coleman, Victoria Browning Wyeth
African Art in the Barnes: Context and Meanings
Learn the traditional meanings and uses of the African sculpture collected by Dr. Barnes while considering the impact of colonialism and imperialism. Instructor: Dwaune Latimer
Close-Looking Immersion: Picasso’s Violin, Sheet Music, and Bottle
Our 90-minute immersions provide opportunities to study and discuss individual works. Instructor: Naina Saligram