Research Forum autumn Term 2011
professorial lecture
Giving Birth – Correggio’s Unveilings
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
17.30 - 18.30, Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre
Antonio Allegri da Correggio, Danaë, c. 1531, Galleria Borghese, Rome. Image courtesy of the Witt Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London
Speaker(s): Paul Hills (Professor of Renaissance Art, The Courtauld of Art)
Ticket/entry details: RSVP to Sophie Nurse by 22 November 2011 (email: sophie.nurse@courtauld.ac.uk)
Organised by: Professor Deborah Swallow (Märit Rausing Director, The Courtauld Institute of Art)
In this lecture Professor Hills explores how in sixteenth-century Italy the theme of nativity or giving birth becomes a metaphor for artistic generation or bringing to light. The paintings of Correggio (1489-1534) – whether of the Madonna adoring the Child or Jupiter impregnating Danäe - present themselves in terms of an uncovering or unfolding. But the disclosure that the painting enacts is never complete; forms are blurred, resolution withheld. This art of discovering set a potent example for later centuries.