Reading group - Geophysiologies of Art
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street
No booking required
Aris Sarafianos (University of Ioannina and Visiting Fellow at Birkbeck) introduced James Barry’s first book, An Inquiry into the Real and Imaginary Obstructions to the Acquisition of the Arts in Britain (1775). Barry’s book has traditionally been analyzed in ways that sideline the theme at the core of its composition, namely, the author’s reply to Continental strands of physical and climatic explanations of art and culture.
In this session, we focused on this neglected current of Barry’s thinking, situating it within the important themes he developed in conjunction with it: the rising status of history in revaluating questions about art; polarities and realignments between physical and cultural models of explanation in art; the multiple – social, national and professional – determinations behind the reception of climate models in Britain; emerging notions of ‘context’ and the persisting centrality of physiology, bodily labor and climate theory; the emergence of new, distinctly northern, paradigms of meteo-cultural explanation, and, finally, the new affective powers assigned to art history and its study.
Contact name:
Kate Retford