Curator's Perspective: Reflections of the Medieval World: Free Lecture @ Frist: Feb 13, 2009

Curator's Perspective: Reflections of the Medieval World
Friday, February 13, 6:30 p.m.
Auditorium, FREE


Stephen N. Fliegel, curator of medieval art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, will present a thousand years of aesthetic culture—from the austere spirituality of the Byzantines to the exalted frivolity of French Gothic secular art—in this lecture on medieval masterpieces from the Cleveland Museum of Art.

These works of art, which were precious in their time, remain so today, not simply because they are beautiful, but as the inheritance of European culture. These works effectively offer us a glimpse of the past that is our own. Whether preserved in church treasuries, buried in the ground, or forgotten in some chest or unvisited corner of a building, objects of the medieval period are survivors of a lost age.

The constant factor throughout these centuries was the common center around which most life was organized—the Christian Church. Fliegel’s lecture will examine sublime sculptures, painted altarpieces, and illuminated manuscripts created in the service of faith and devotion. He will also discuss objects commissioned by some of Europe’s great aristocrats—King Charles V of France; the Duke of Burgandy, Philip the Bold; and Queen Isabella of Spain—as expressions of their personal wealth and taste. The lecture will also present an overview of the Cleveland Museum’s medieval collection, which is internationally recognized as one of the world’s finest.

Image: A Bridal Pair, 1400s. South German. Oil on panel, 30 ½ x 20 1/16 x 2 15/16 in. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Delia E. Holden and L. E. Holden Funds 1932.179