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5 pm | Public Reception & European Gallery Viewing
6 pm | Lecture
Traditional scholarship has branded 17th century artist Nicolas Poussin as a cool intellectual, severe classicist, and the embodiment of French secular rationalism. Dr. Hilliard T. Goldfarb, Senior Curator at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, takes a different approach by analyzing the influence of a broader religious climate on his body of work. Goldfarb will discuss the culture of Rome, where Poussin lived and worked for most of his career, and the passion at that time for archaeological rediscovery of early Church history. The artist’s personal religious affiliations will be explored in light of the breadth of subjects he painted, especially the Wadsworth’s somber and tragic The Crucifixion, 1644-46.
Free and open to the public.
PLEASE NOTE: The museum’s Avery Door entrance (along Atheneum Square North, across from Travelers Tower) is currently closed to accommodate construction on Travelers Plaza. Please enter the museum through the doors at 600 Main Street. Click here for directions and more information.
Image: Nicolas Poussin, The Crucifixion, 1644–46, Oil on canvas, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1935.422