Art Historian's Talk
Lectures and symposia
April 11, 2013
07:00 pm
– 08:00 pm
(in German)
The flaying of Marsyas: a cruel myth about the story of a creature skinned alive. The depictions of this myth in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European art are no less cruel. The motif fascinates painters and sculptors—it almost seems as though they competed over who could conjure the most vivid image of such cruelty. Toward the end of the seventeenth century, the motif disappears from the visual arts. The lecture explores the functions the myth served and proposes a reading in which it represented a way to work through trauma.
Dr. Laura Arici is an art historian and teaches in the Department of Art and Media at the Zurich University of the Arts.
The flaying of Marsyas: a cruel myth about the story of a creature skinned alive. The depictions of this myth in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European art are no less cruel. The motif fascinates painters and sculptors—it almost seems as though they competed over who could conjure the most vivid image of such cruelty. Toward the end of the seventeenth century, the motif disappears from the visual arts. The lecture explores the functions the myth served and proposes a reading in which it represented a way to work through trauma.
Dr. Laura Arici is an art historian and teaches in the Department of Art and Media at the Zurich University of the Arts.