WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — On Saturday, April 12 at 11 am, the Clark Art Institute presents "A History of Arcadia in Art and Literature," a talk by Paul Holberton. 

 

This free lecture is given in conjunction with the Clark's exhibition Pastoral on Paper and takes place in the Clark's Manton Research Center auditorium.

 

According to a press release:

 

Dr. Holberton, author of the acclaimed two-volume book A History of Arcadia in Art and Literature (2021), examines how idyllic landscapes and rustic scenes have been portrayed from antiquity through the Renaissance and into the eighteenth century. Responding to leading early modern literary and artistic luminaries such as Torquato Tasso, Claude Lorrain, and Thomas Gainsborough, he traces the complex journey of the pastoral across cultures and eras, from Virgil's adaptations of Theocritus to the influence of medieval pastourelles.

 

The idyllic tranquility of the lives of shepherds became a prominent subject in literature, music, and the visual arts over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. On view through June 15, Pastoral on Paper explores how artists depicted rural life by considering their representation of cows, cottages, mules, maidens, shepherds, ruins, and overgrown landscapes. Selected primarily from the Clark's strong holdings of drawings by Claude Lorrain and Thomas Gainsborough and supplemented with select loans of Dutch Italianate artworks, this exhibition analyzes pastoral imagery to examine how artists construct their own visions of an idealized landscape. 

 

Pastoral on Paper is organized by the Clark Art Institute and curated by William Satloff, Class of 2025, Williams Graduate Program in the History of Art.