Beauty Comes from Use: The Art of Asia and Africa

Dates: 
November 11, 2010
Times: 
Thursday, 5:30 p.m.
Location: 
The Strand Theatre, Rockland

Western theories of beauty are not universal; over time, other cultures and civilizations independently developed their own unique ideas about beauty. This lecture will survey theories of beauty from select countries as diverse as India, China, Japan and Africa. The bronze gods and goddesses of Gupta India, towering landscape paintings of Sung China, lopsided tea cups demonstrating wabi sabi from Muromachi, Japan, and seventy-five- pound wooden masks from West Africa will be discussed from the point of view of indigenous ideas about beauty. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Western artists discovered the art from these faraway places and began to reconsider their own ideas of beauty.  

SERIES OVERVIEW: This three-part series conducted by Farnsworth Director of Education Roger Dell examines the idea of beauty throughout the ages in Western Europe and America, as well as in Asia, Africa, and Oceania. Using images from museums abroad and in this country, including works from the Farnsworth collection, Dell will trace the idea of what was considered beautiful in early Greek and Roman society to the different theories of beauty in other countries and finally to the current controversies about beauty in today’s art world.
 
 
Location: Strand Theatre, Rockland
Cost: $8 members, $10 nonmembers
 
Phone Number: 
207-596-0949
Base Price: $8.00