HESBURGH LECTURE SERIES 2013 Program - Alumni Association ...

Charles M. Rosenberg, Ph.D.
Professor, Art
Biography
Charles Rosenberg, professor of art history at the University of Notre Dame, joined the faculty
in 1980. An internationally recognized authority on Italian Renaissance and Baroque art,
Rosenberg has held numerous national fellowships, including one to the Harvard University
Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at the Villa I Tatti in Florence. He was the recipient of
the National Endowment for the Humanities Rome Prize in Art History and was a fellow at
the American Academy in Rome from 2000-05. He received a Kaneb Teaching Award in 2003.
The author of several dozen articles and reviews, Rosenberg has also published a book on art
and politics in Renaissance Ferrara, is the editor of a recent book on art and patronage in six
northern Italian Renaissance cities, and is completing a catalog of Notre Dame’s collection of
Rembrandt prints.
Lectures
The Art Museum in the 21st Century
The roots of the public art museum lie in the great private collections assembled by the kings of France and the wealthy ruling
families of Europe, such as the Medici and the Hapsburgs. These grand accumulations of art were first made available to a
broad public at the end of the 18th century. The national and civic art museums that emerged in the course of the 19th and
20th centuries served a wide variety of functions, not only safeguarding cultural treasures, but also serving the intellectual and
aesthetic needs of both popular and scholarly audiences. Today, the role of the public art museum has expanded even further
into the worlds of education and popular entertainment. In addition, these institutions have been profoundly affected by the
constantly changing opportunities and challenges of technology. This lecture investigates the many faces of the modern museum
by considering its constituencies, functions, and obligations as a social, economic, and cultural phenomenon.
Leonardo da Vinci: Painter of Mysteries
Leonardo da Vinci was one of the greatest painters of religious subjects of all time. His creativity allowed him to invent new
themes and to transform traditional ones in extraordinary ways. This lecture examines some of Leonardo’s most important
religious paintings, including the “The Adoration of the Magi” (Florence, Uffizi), “The Madonna of the Rocks” (Paris, Louvre;
London, National Gallery), “The Last Supper” (Milan, Sta. Maria delle Grazie), and “The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and
the Lamb” (Paris, Louve), as a means of revealing the artist’s unique vision of the most profound mysteries of the Christian faith.
The Most Beautiful Sermon in the World: The Ghent Altarpiece
In 1432, Jan van Eyck, a painter of unparalleled skill and intellect, completed an enormous, complex altarpiece for what was then
the Church of Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, in the city of Ghent. This painting was acknowledged as one of
the most important works of its time almost from the moment of its creation. The work is not only dazzlingly beautiful, but it
is a profoundly conceived and rendered visual sermon on the theme of salvation. This lecture looks closely at this extraordinary
masterpiece and the manner in which the artist was able to make matters of faith into a visual reality.
The Sistine Chapel: History and Meaning
The Sistine Chapel is one of the most famous masterpieces of the Renaissance. The building and decoration of this monument
took almost 70 years to complete, spanning the reigns of nine popes and engaging the talents of artists as diverse as Botticelli,
Raphael, and Michelangelo. The cleaning of Michelangelo’s frescos in the 1980s and 1990s refocused attention on this moving and
enlightening monument. This lecture will consider a number of issues relating to the Sistine frescos and their history: What are
the complex messages of this chapel’s paintings and how do they relate to the Sistine’s functions in the past and in the present?
What was the controversy over the frescoes restoration? Have we recaptured a unique monument from the ravages of time, or
destroyed a masterpiece?
88 The Hesburgh Lecture Series, 2013 Program
Categories
Art/Achitecture