Art and Intimacy in 15th Century Italy Professor Adrian Randolph, Leon E. Williams Professor of Art History at Dartmouth College The word ‘intimacy’ is attractive partly because it summons up a set of interrelated and evocative meanings that speak directly to certain types of objects we tend to call art. Intimacy suggests proximity and closeness, and is tinged with sensual and perhaps sexual possibility, and, when applied to apparel, getting right next to the skin. This epidermal intimacy is matched by a form of interiority lodged etymologically in the word…
