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EXCLUSIVE WEBINAR | “The Dark Side of Genius: Artists and Melancholia”

Presented by Dr. Laurinda Dixon
with Additional Commentary by Dr. Rocky Ruggiero

“Feeling blue?”, “Down in the dumps?”, or “In a bad humour?”  Most people have expressed these sentiments at one time or another in their lives.  But these words once described a real medical disorder, “melancholia,” ruled by the planet Saturn and the element of earth. Aristotle was the first to associate the physical and psychological symptoms of melancholia (depression, sociopathy, pallor, dark ringed eyes, etc.) with intellectual geniuses. But he left artists out of the equation. It was the German polymath Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), who added creative artists to the mix, uniting manual skill, creative genius, and social alienation in a new paradigm of privilege and passion. His famous engraving Melencolia 1(1514) became a model for centuries thereafter for artists wishing to present themselves as gifted, erudite, and tortured by the dark side of genius.  In the following centuries, Dürer’s model prevailed, as artists continued to define and refine a new elite identity in which self-worth did not depend on noble blood or material wealth, but rather on talent and intellect. They expressed this concept in their own self-portraits, which appealed to an audience whose gaze was trained to discern the invisible internal self by means of external appearances. Though the term “melancholia” has all but vanished from psychological discourse, the condition persists in disorders like depression and bi-polarism.  Today, the troubled persona of the artist-genius continues to embody the alienating and depersonalizing forces of civilization.

The webinar will include a 45-minute lecture followed by 15-minutes of Q&A.

Please note:

• Your participation is confirmed once you have purchased your ticket. You will receive the Zoom link to join the presentation circa 30 minutes before the start time.
• VIDEO RECORDING of the webinar will be available for unlimited streaming at your convenience for the entire month after the event.

Lecturer

Laurinda Dixon is a specialist in northern European Renaissance art. Currently retired, she served as the William F. Tolley Distinguished Professor of Teaching in the Humanities at Syracuse University for many years. Her scholarship considers the intersection of art and science – particularly alchemy, medicine, astrology, and music – from the fifteenth though the nineteenth centuries. She has lectured widely in both the USA and Europe, and is the author of many articles, reviews, and eleven books, including Perilous Chastity: Women and Illness in Pre-Enlightenment Art and Medicine (1995), Bosch (2003), and The Dark Side of Genius: The Melancholic Persona in Art, ca. 1500-1700 (2013). Laurinda holds a Ph.D. in art history from Boston University, as well as a degree in piano performance from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. She currently resides in Cincinnati, Ohio.