Fine Arts
Representations Lecture Series presents “Strolling with Power: Excavation and Publication of the Garden of the Villa Arianna, Stabiae.”
Location
FAC 235Date & Time
12:30pm - 1:00pm CST January 17, 2018Contact
Mathers Box Office: 512-863-137812:30pm - 1:00pm CST January 17, 2018
FAC 235
Open gallery
The Sarofim School of Fine Arts is pleased to present Representations, a brown bag lecture series that features current and upcoming research by Southwestern University faculty whose focus is on representations in art and culture. The lectures are short conference-style papers followed by questions, and they are to serve as a model for students on how to conduct formal presentations in their respective fields.
Thomas Noble Howe (Professor of Art and Art History and chair of Art History) will present on his experience of ten years of excavation and study at the largest, best well-preserved Roman garden ever discovered, the Villa Arianna Stabiae. The excavation of the enormous, excellently preserved garden by hundreds of students and scholars from twelve institutions and seven countries has revealed in amazing detail how the Roman elite used these luxurious seaside villa gardens not just as places of relaxation, but also as a stage to control the social interactions of powerful people. The project includes some six known villas, buried in the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, of up to 22,000 sq m. This discovery clarifies exactly how elite inhabitants and guests used this garden and ambient architecture to move through spaces and interact in an intensely political environment. Howe returns to Stabiae every summer, often bringing Southwestern architectural, classics, history, art and art history students with him, offering the students a high-impact learning experience and a life-changing opportunity to work in the field.
The Representations Lecture Series is free and open to the public.