Join us for a symposium on the exhibition Spain and the Hispanic World, featuring lectures from James Clifton (Curator of Renaissance and Baroque painting at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston), Elliott Wise (Associate Professor, Art History & Curatorial Studies at Brigham Young University), and BYU students.
This symposium is free and open to everyone.
Schedule:
9:15 - Breakfast for all Symposium Attendees
10:00-12:15 - Morning Session
- Keynote by Dr. James Clifton: "The Last Four Things"
- Kendall da Silva: "Performing Poverty: José Gutiérrez Solana’s Critique of Urban Modernity in Masked Street Musicians"
- Chase Tippetts: “The All-Powerful Lamb Leads: Juan de Valdés Leal and Reform of the Council of Trent”
- Emily Wells: “Sail and Star: Stella Maris in Fray Alonso López de Herrera’s Virgin of the Immaculate Conception”
1:30-4:30 - Afternoon Session
- Faculty Address by Dr. Elliott Wise: "Courtly Black, Golden Cloth, and Draperies of Flesh and Blood: Textiles as Protagonists in Spain and the Hispanic World"
- Paige Barney: “Sacred Synthesis: Investigating the Coexistence of Muslim and Christian Beliefs in Spanish Art”
- Addison Sepulveda: “Echoes of Devotion: The Connections between Juan de Valdés Leal's Christ Carrying the Cross and Holy Week Processional Sculptures in Spain”
- Zerin Likes: “Sacred Embrace: Mary's Concealed Presence in The Penitent Saint Jerome"
- Ivy Griffiths: “To See the Big Picture, Step Away: The Penitents by Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta”
- Hannah Mosher: “Juan de Valdés Leal: Burdens of the Body and Burdens of the Heart”
- Abby Jafek: “The Four Fates of Man and the Influence of Spanish Wood Sculpture in Colonial Latin America”
About the Keynote Speaker:
James Clifton (Ph.D. Princeton, 1987) has been Director of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation and Curator in Renaissance and Baroque Painting at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston since 1994. He has published more than forty essays on early-modern European art and culture, especially concerning paintings, prints, and cabinets of curiosity, including recent essays on prints of Jesus in a flower-strewn bed and chaos in Louis Finson’s Allegory of the Four Elements. His curated and co-curated exhibitions include The Body of Christ in the Art of Europe and New Spain, 1150-1800 (1997); A Portrait of the Artist, 1525-1825 (2005); The Plains of Mars: European War Prints, 1500-1825 (2009); Scripture for the Eyes: Bible Illustration in Netherlandish Prints of the Sixteenth Century (2009); Elegance and Refinement: The Still-Life Paintings of Willem van Aelst (2012); Pleasure and Piety: The Art of Joachim Wtewael (2015); and Through a Glass Darkly: Allegory and Faith in Netherlandish Prints from Lucas van Leyden to Rembrandt (2019). He co-edited the volumes Imago exegetica: Visual Images as Exegetical Instruments, 1400-1700 (2013) and Mary, Mother of God: Devotion and Doctrine in the Visual Arts, 1450-1750 (2024).
About the Faculty Speaker:
Elliott D. Wise completed a B.A. and M.A. in Art History at Brigham Young University in 2007 and 2009, respectively. In 2016 he received a Ph.D. in Art History from Emory University, studying the Northern Renaissance as his major field and medieval art as his minor field. He spent a semester at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and a year in New York City as a fellow at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. His dissertation explores the affinity between vernacular mystical literature in the Low Countries and panel paintings by Rogier van der Weyden (c. 1399–1464) and Robert Campin (c. 1375–1445). His research and publications focus on the devotional function of late medieval and early modern art. In particular, he is interested in art and liturgy, representations of the Eucharistic Christ and the Virgin Mary, and the visual culture of the great mendicant and monastic orders. Recent publications include Mary, Mother of God: Devotions and Doctrine in the Visual Arts, 1450–1700 (Brill, 2023).
