Hope and Hopelessness: Pandemic Paintings in Western Art

Conference: The Barcelona Conference on Arts, Media & Culture (BAMC2021)
Title: Hope and Hopelessness: Pandemic Paintings in Western Art
Stream: Interdisciplinary, Multidisciplinary & Transdisciplinary Education
Presentation Type: Live-Stream Presentation
Authors:
Alan Garfield, University of Dubuque, United States

Abstract:

Ever since the 1347 plague (what Roosen and Green’s 2020 bibliography on the state of Black Death research in the era of COVID-19 called Mother of All Pandemics) arrived on the doorstep of Boccaccio (the 34-year-old struggling writer living at home in Florence with his parents), pandemics have become a strange, perplexing stepchild of the arts. As a serial, cyclical repeater, plagues (flu, diseases, and viruses in various forms) have effected individuals and entire armies, artists and nobility. In art, its iconography has developed a contrasting expression of hope and hopelessness. With our own Covid-19 in mind, we will look back to examine how various Italian Quattrocento thru Seicento and Northern Renaissance to Baroque artists have dealt with the subject of a deadly, mysterious pandemic. We will view work, among others, by Piero della Francesca, Albrecht Durer, Titian, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Salvador Rosa and Sr. Caterina de Julianis.

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