Page-Barbour and James W. Richard Lectures
For Spring 2012 The Page-Barbour Lectures present:
Martin Kemp
http://www.martinjkemp.com/
Emeritus Professor of the History of Art, Oxford University
Intuition, Structure and Trust: Aspects of Visual Representation in Art and Science from the Renaissance to Now
"The waves of the sea, the little ripples of the shore, the sweeping curve of the hills, the shape of the clouds, all these are so many riddles of form, so many problems of morphology, and all of them the physicist can more or less easily read and adequately solve...but it is on another plane of thought from the physicists that we contemplate their intrinsic harmony and perfection." (D'Arcy Thompson, On Growth and Form, 1917)
Certain kinds of art and science originate in the intuiting of deep structures that lie behind appearance. The representations involve various levels of naturalistic or formal matching, ranging from minimal resemblance to photographic-style realism. The lectures, cast in the form of visual essays, will look at three aspects of how representations and invented structure function in different contexts in art, science, engineering and architecture. Each lecture will spring off from Leonardo da Vinci and reach into the contemporary era.
Platonic Solids. The relationship between nature and geometry has recurrently involved the five regular or Platonic solids and their variants. From the time of Leonardo's illustration of the regular solids, they have become points of reference in art, architecture, engineering, cosmology, biology and microscopy, crossing the widest possible range of scales. We will travel from the Renaissance to modern cosmology.
Patterns of Process. Natural geometry can arise as the result of process, through self-organization, and are shared across organic and inorganic worlds. The lecture will concentrate on two processes: patterns of motion in fluids, especially splashing; the dynamics of folding. The examples will range from Renaissance Madonnas to contemporary architecture.
Taking it on Trust. The representation of structures, whether those seen in our normal visual experience or constructed from scientific data, openly solicits our trust. The lecture will concentrate on the role of naturalism from the Renaissance onwards, arguing that it acts as a double-edged sword that can be used to provide convincing pictures of non-existent things. The underlying issue of naturalism and trust is heightened in the modern era of digital and digitally-manipulated images.
Monday, April 9th Platonic Solids
Tuesday, April 10th Patterns of Process
Wednesday, April 11th Taking it on Trust
All lectures in the Harrison Auditorium at 4 pm each afternoon with a catered reception following each lecture.
ALL LECTURES FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Upcoming Lectures
About the Lectures
The Page-Barbour Lectures were founded in 1907 by Mrs. Thomas Nelson Page. The lectures, which may be in any field in the arts and sciences, are to present "some fresh aspect or aspects of the department of thought" in which the lecturer is a specialist, and are to possess such unity as to be published in book form by the University.
Past Page-Barbour Lecturers include President and Chief Justice William Howard Taft; poets T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden; philosophers Walter Lippman and John Dewey; and psychologists B.F. Skinner and Robert Coles.
Recent Page-Barbour Lectures include philosopher Richard Rorty, physicist Freeman Dyson, and anthropologist Maurice Godelier.
The James W. Richard Lectures are funded by an endowment established by the will of Este Coffinberry, probated in 1923. The will specifies that one lecture is to be in religion and another in history, especially comparative history. It also provides that the lectures are to be such that the University might publish them as a book.
Past James W. Richard Lecturers include theologians and philosophers Etienne Gilson, Paul Tillich, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Thomas Torrance, Nicholas Lash, and Langdon Gilkey; and historians Jaroslav Pelikan, Jacob Neusner, and Edmund Morgan.
Recent James W. Richard Lecturers include philosopher Stephen Mulhall, political theorist Quentin Skinner, historian Lynn Hunt, and religious studies scholar David Schulman.
Contacts
For more information, contact Walter Jost, Lectures Committee Chair or Richard Jones, Assistant to the Page-Barbour and Richard Lectures Committee.