Art Appreciation   

Two groundbreaking exhibitions, one at The Courtauld in London in 2015 and the other at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2016 explored the concept of the “unfinished” in art. Inspired by these exhibitions but greatly expanding upon them, we will explore unfinished or “Nonfinito” artworks in Western art from across the spectrum of periods and styles, with insights from Eastern art. This presentation will be a comparative experience with vividly detailed images.

The reopening of the great Gothic cathedral on December 8, 2024--following the near-disastrous fire of April 2019--offers new knowledge of this key European monument through conservation, archaeology, and restoration. Surprising new discoveries give us a glimpse of its unique architecture, stained glass, and sculptural decoration. This talk will focus on these topics and how our understanding of them has changed over time.

Christmas: from keeping Christ in it, to carols filling the air at the mall before Thanksgiving, to preserving holiday traditions that link us back to our past – it can all seem a bit chaotic. But what if you were to look at another era when issues like commercialization, piety, and contested traditions were depicted in paintings? This lecture focuses on the art of 17th-century Flanders and Holland, particularly the contrast of Jacob Jordaens, a Flemish Protestant student and painter of revels and feasts, versus Jan Steen, a Dutch Catholic painter of comedies, both of whom hid in plain sight secret Christmas messages that reflected their beliefs and the fragile tolerance they both enjoyed in a time of great religious strife.