Art History Newsletter » David Packwood http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog News for Art Historians Fri, 19 Nov 2010 13:45:14 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 It’s Botticelli, man! http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/?p=1656 http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/?p=1656#comments Thu, 27 May 2010 07:56:27 +0000 David Packwood http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/?p=1656 Plants in renaissance paintings usually have religious associations, but seldom if ever connections with mind-expanding drugs. Now, David Bellamy of Sotheby’s has decided that a plant held by a satyr in Botticelli’s canonical ‘Venus and Mars’ has hallucinogenic properties.

After consulting with horticultural experts at Kew Gardens, Bellamy maintains that it is Datura stramonium – sometimes known as devil’s trumpet. According to the Telegraph, the drug makes you “hot and disinhibited”, which may be why Mars has stripped off his clothes. The famous clothed Venus could, if we accept the drug theory, represent a warning against such intoxicated abandonment.

I’ve taught courses on pictures and reception theory in which I’ve pointed out that something in the painting is being offered to the viewer, but if Bellamy is right, the viewer of the picture is being offered Datura, sometimes known as ‘poor man’s acid’.

Can a picture get you high in this sense? I’m thinking that if this is true, it’s going to be a case of move over Panofsky and Wind to make way for Timothy Leary.

]]> http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=1656 11 The Accademia di San Luca Seminars http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/?p=1449 http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/?p=1449#comments Tue, 20 Apr 2010 18:30:44 +0000 David Packwood http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/?p=1449 Amongst the many topics covered in The Accademia Seminars: The Accademia di San Luca in Rome, c. 1590-1635 (2009),  the second volume of seminar papers from the Centre for Advanced Research in the Visual Arts (CASVA), are the following: the function of notaries within the Accademia, the relationship between philosophy, painting and academic theory, and the teaching structure of the organization. Each of the 12 essays may be seen as a window of opportunity for scholars working on the artistic and institutional culture of early modern Rome. For me, several essays suggest ways of enhancing my own research on such problems as the teaching of anatomy in Rome around 1600. I’d like to know more about the overlapping of medical centres and artistic spaces, a topic flagged up in essays by Julian Brooks and Frances Gage. I also found Laurie Nussdorffer’s essay on the intersection of notaries and the congregations of painters suggestive because it throws light on an aspect of academic culture that has been ignored – scribal practices and the business affairs of painters.

The volume has not been created for a narrow band of scholars though – a wider audience is envisaged, including members of the general public. This is what makes the whole project so deserving of praise, the dissemination of cutting edge ideas and research to those outside a small circle of academic friends.

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