Lecture: A Mother's Touch: The Agency of Mary in Renaissance Art

Join us for a lecture by Kim Butler Wingfield, PhD, Associate Professor of Renaissance Art History, American University Art Department!

This talk considers representations of the Virgin Mary in Renaissance art in relation to both maternal social values in the period and theological authority. Mary was like ordinary women, in the domestic maternal values she embodied and fostered in female viewers, and different, in her unique religious authority that was rooted in her singular bodily connection to Christ. Mary's special connection to Renaissance tondi (circular paintings), largely produced for domestic settings, is also discussed.

We invite you to join the conversation via the following options:

• In-person in the Diffley Board Room, on the first floor of Bellarmine Hall
• Streaming via thequicklive.com

Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Out of the Kress Vaults: Women in Sacred Renaissance Painting and part of the Edwin L. Weisl, Jr. Lectureships in Art History, funded by the Robert Lehman Foundation.

About Out of the Kress Vaults: The exhibition explores representations of femininity and virtue in Italian Renaissance paintings of the Virgin Mary, female saints, and nuns. This exhibition is the first in the museum’s history to be co-curated with Fairfield University students. Taking inspiration from two paintings of the Madonna and Child in the museum’s own Samuel H. Kress Collection, students in Dr. Michelle DiMarzo’s art history seminar developed the exhibition by examining Kress collections at other institutions, with an emphasis on works typically held in storage. 

 https://www.fairfield.edu/museum/kressvaults/