The Bizarre and the Beautiful: Fantasy as Visual Pleasure in Renaissance and Baroque Prints

Friday September 12, 2008 - Sunday October 12, 2008
The Bizarre and the Beautiful: Fantasy as Visual Pleasure in Renaissance and Baroque Prints

Hendrick Goltzius (Dutch, 1558-1617), The Dragon Devouring the Companions of Cadmus, 1588, engraving. Friends of the Davison Art Center funds, 1987.1.1 (photo: R. J. Phil)

Like the swirls of ornamental grotesques that adorned architecture, metalwork, and textiles, the boundaries between beauty and strangeness were extremely fluid in Renaissance and Baroque art. Through monsters, hybrid creatures, and bodies that twisted into fanciful shapes, artists visualized myths and dreams, delighting their viewers by these seemingly limitless flights of fantasy. Drawn from the Davison Art Center Collection, this exhibition featured works by Agostino Carracci, Enea Vico, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Christoph Jamnitzer, Jacques Callot, Hendrick Goltzius, and others, probing the very essence of art and artistry of the period.

RELATED EVENT

Opening reception
Thursday 11 September, 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Nadja Aksamija, Assistant Professor of Art History, gave a gallery talk at 5:30 p.m.
The reception and gallery talk were open to the public free of charge.