'Wonder-Lust': The Reception of the Belvedere Sculpture Courtyard
The European Visual Culture Seminar presents:
Caterina Sciacca
‘Wonder-Lust’: The Reception of the Belvedere Sculpture Courtyard
Pompeo Batoni - Thomas Dundas, later first Baron Dundas, 1764 (Marquis of Zetland, Aske Hall, West Yorkshire).
The Belvedere Sculpture Courtyard houses one of the most famous sculpture collections in the Western world. It has attracted the interests of scholars, artists and tourists since the Renaissance. It originally functioned as a private pleasure garden to which only a privileged few were granted access. In the eighteenth century this changed, and the courtyard became popular with a new audience: the Grand Tourists. For the Grand Tourist, the experience offered by the collection in the Belvedere Sculpture Courtyard was both educational (in that it provided access to some of the masterpieces of antiquity) and aesthetic (in that it encouraged viewers to take pleasure in the representation of the human body). This paper will discuss the sensual nature of the Belvedere Statue Courtyard during the later part of the eighteenth century and the reception of aesthetic pleasure by the Grand Tourists.
Monday 12th April, 2010, 6:45pm
Rm 148, Elisabeth Murdoch Building (Parkville Campus)
All Welcome
Drinks and nibbles provided. Gold coin donation appreciated for snacks. Wine donated by Eugene Barilo von Reisberg.
