The intersection between climate change and art history opens new
pathways for understanding how visual and material culture
mediates human relationships to the natural
world. Historical and contemporary depictions of nature
illuminate how aesthetic practices register environmental
knowledge and respond to ecological stress. Far from being a
luxury of elite culture, art history is an essential tool for
imagining alternative ecological futures.
Threats to cultural heritage are on the rise globally, due to
factors ranging from war and intentional destruction to
unfettered development and climate change. International cultural
heritage institutions and their methods seem inadequate at best,
and abetting threats to culture at worst. Join two of the most
incisive voices in debates on cultural heritage today to explore
the stakes for the protection of cultural heritage around the
world.
China exported immense quantities of art across the globe in the
early modern era, which made Chinese art highly influential in
international design trends. The 2024 Templeton Colloquium
in Art History will explore the influence of Chinese art and
aesthetics on European and East Asian societies. Chinese
art brought cultures into contact with each other, created
increased awareness of geographically distant societies, and
shaped modern tastes in art.
The Pacific, California’s neighbor to the west, is largest of the
planet’s oceans and home to many societies and
cultures. Pacific peoples have for centuries connected to
each other and to the bigger world, despite vast expanses
involved in traversing this region of the globe. The Pacific
is also the site of fanciful modern projection: a space of
tourist appeal, strategic political value, philosophical
speculation, and colonial exploitation.
Twentieth-century nationalism was marked by the effective use of
press culture and graphic satire to shape the discourse of
modernity. Along the way, women’s rights and minority rights were
struggles that formal institutions resisted and appropriated.
This year’s Templeton Colloquium invites four experts to address
the often-overlooked role of liminal bodies in the processes of
modernization and the forms of modernity in press and satire
cultures based in such metropolitan centers as Tehran, Cairo,
Istanbul, and Beirut.
American cultural institutions are an integral part of the
broader discussion of racism taking place in our society. Museums
are powerful spaces for communicating cultural values, including
racially based notions of cultural difference. Can the museum be
a space of anti-racism, and can the discipline of art history
help to achieve that? If so, what are the challenges and
concerns involved?
The relationship between art and the Enlightenment is polemical.
Enlightenment philosophical ideals centered on precepts of
reason, self, society, perfection and beauty, among others. Yet,
study of painting of this period demonstrates that art was not
only rational and orderly, but also wildly hubristic,
overambitious, and even went as far as rejecting tenets of the
Enlightenment.
An understanding and appreciation of color is fundamental to art
history, and yet our experience of color in the world around us
is broadly subjective. Tracing the use and perception of color in
past cultures can be even more elusive. However, recent research
has taken diverse approaches—from investigating the manufacture
of pigments to considering literary descriptions of the workings
of the eye—illuminating ancient artworks with dramatic results.
The Colloquium considers the power of color in both the ancient
Mediterranean and early Latin America.
The 2017 Templeton Colloquium in Art History celebrated the
distinguished career of Professor Lynn Roller, chair of art
history, and art history’s newest hire, Assistant Professor
Alexandra Sofroniew, both experts of early Mediterranean
visual and material cultures.
Convergent Cultures / Convergent Image examines communication
through the visual arts from a global perspective. Bridging the
arts of Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, the three
colloquium speakers will address the cross-cultural and
cross-regional nature of visual heritage and consider how
contemporary responses to visual culture and identity are
centered in their historical roots.
Padmal Kaimal, professor, Department of Art and Art History,
Colgate University, “Change and Persistence: The Kailasanatha
Temple at Kanchi from the 8th-21st Centuries”
Andres Marks, Curator, Clark Center for Japanese Art and
Culture, ”Hiroshige’s Famous Tokaido Series”
Joseph Sorensen, Associate Professor, East Asian Languages and
Culture, UC Davis, “Secret Teachings, Hidden Meanings: The
Samurai Scholar Hosokawa Yusai”
David Gundry, Assistant Professor, East Asian Languages and
Culture, UC Davis, ”Hell Hath No Fury: Text and Image in a
Pivotal Chapter of Ihara Saikaku’s The Life of an Amorous
Man”
Timothy Brook, professor, Institute of Asian Research, University
of British Columbia, ”China on Vermeer’s Table: The Cultural
Impact of Early Global Trade”
Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Frederick Marquand Professor of Art and
Archaeology, Princeton University, “Reflections on World Art
History”
