CANCELED - Raphael Transfigured: Colm Tóibín
As a precautionary measure in response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the Department of Art and Art History is canceling certain upcoming programs, and temporarily closing both the Stanford Art Gallery and Coulter Art Gallery. We appreciate your understanding during this time. Please visit healthalerts.stanford.edu for the latest information.
Raphael died on April 6, 1520, and the whole of Europe mourned the loss of God's gift to humankind. No other painter—we read in the letters that flooded Rome after the news broke—was as divine, as inspired, and as graceful as Raphael. The funeral cost as much as a Renaissance palace and he was buried in the Pantheon, the temple of all gods, an honor no other mortal has ever been granted. Still today, 1520 marks a point of no return in art historical narratives, the passage from the extraordinary inventions of the High Renaissance to the precious repetition of forms that goes under the name of Mannerism. Raphael's death turned the artistic lights of Rome off; his pupils fled the papal city to work in other European courts. The geography of art has never been the same.
To commemorate the 500th anniversary of this artistic earthquake, the Department of Art and Art History has organized Raphael Transfigured: Three Lectures on the Occasion of the 500th Anniversary of the Great Artist's Death. The painter Enrique Martinez Celaya (Monday, April 6) and the writers Rachel Cusk (Tuesday, April 14) and Colm Tóibín will share what Raphael has meant for them and reflect on the legacy of his work for contemporary culture at large.
Join us on Wednesday, May 20, for "The Dynamic Gaze," a lecture by Colm Tóibín.
Colm Tóibín is the author of nine novels, including The Blackwater Lightship; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; The Testament of Mary; and Nora Webster, as well as two story collections, and Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know, a look at three nineteenth-century Irish authors. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University. Three times shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Toibin lives in Dublin and New York.
Image: Raphael. Untitled (Self-portrait on paper). 1498-1520. The British Museum, London. © The Trustees of the British Museum
Visitor Information: Oshman Hall is located in the McMurtry Building on the Stanford campus at 355 Roth Way. Visitor parking is free after 4 pm on weekdays, except by the Oval. Alternatively, take the Caltrain to Palo Alto Transit Center and ride the free Stanford Marguerite Shuttle.
Connect with the Department of Art & Art History! Subscribe to our mailing list and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.