Event │Dark Renaissance │Friday 28 February

Events
Dark Renaissance
28 February 2025, 10am-5pm and online via Zoom
Lecture Theatre 2, Old Geology Building, Parkville Campus, University of Melbourne
The Renaissance period is associated with so many artistic and cultural innovations that it can be easy to overlook its darker aspects. But there is another side to this history, from toxic materials and techniques to violent images and social isolation. For this symposium, early modern specialists from across Australia and New Zealand will come together to take a new look at Renaissance, and a different lens on this fascinating and troubled period.
The event is organised by the Australian Institute of Art History at the University of Melbourne.

Program

Session One, 10.00am – 11.30am

Anne Dunlop, Acknowledgment of Country, Introduction: The Dark Renaissance

Andrea Bubenik (UQ), In Sickness and in Health: Dürer’s Medical Instruments

Susanne Meurer (UWA), Toxic Atmospheres in the Printmaker’s Workshop

Erin Griffey (Auckland), Toxicity and safety in early modern cosmetics: Perception and practice

Session Two, 12.00pm – 1.30pm

Luke Morgan (Monash), ‘A Menagerie of Circe’: The Enchantress in the Early Modern Garden

Caroline Paganussi (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga), The Devil of Mergellina: Toxic Masculinity in an Early Modern Neapolitan Altarpiece

Arvi Wattel (UWA), The Toxicity of Tolerance: Representing Jewish Presence and Religious Tensions in Renaissance Ferrara

Session Three, 3.00pm – 4.30pm

Lisa Mansfield (Adelaide), Toxic Monsters: Neurosyphilis in the Art and Life of Urs Graf

Mark K Erdmann (Melbourne), No Country for Young Men: Heike Paintings and Warrior Identity in Post-Warring States Japan

Kristie Patricia Flannery (ACU), Toxic Beginnings: Rethinking Violence and Empire in the Batavia Shipwreck and Australia’s Colonial Genesis

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