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Fields of interest

Italian sculpture of the Renaissance and Baroque.
The psychology of art.

Research

As we may gather from contemporary accounts, people in seventeenth century Italy often spoke of sculpture as if it were alive: works of art were said to breathe, move, speak, and even have feelings. Moreover, in some cases people actually were said to interact with these works of art in a way that suggests they were perceived as living beings rather than cleverly modelled lumps of marble or bronze. Thus, to give an example, we have Giovan Andrea Borboni’s account of Francesco D’Este, who, when seeing his own portrait sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, was so drawn in by its lifelikeness that ‘he spoke with it, like a newborn Pygmalion'. Likewise, the British diarist John Evelyn reports of a Roman collector of antiquities, Ippolito Vitelleschi, who ‘frequently talks’ to his statues, ‘as if they were living, pronouncing now and then orations, sentences, and verses, sometime kissing and embracing them’. At first, responses like these, grouped here under the label of ‘living presence response’, may seem rather inconsistent; even though spectators must have been well aware (and indeed, in some cases did not fail to point out) that these works of art were essentially lifeless, they nevertheless spoke of them and treated them as being alive. In my research, I try to understand this phenomenon by looking at the way such responses functioned in their historical context, considering religion, literature, natural sciences and, obviously, the visual arts. Furthermore, I apply modern-day insights from the psychology of perception and response to come to a further understanding of this phenomenon. The main question I want to answer in my thesis is accordingly: How may we understand living presence responses to baroque sculpture in Italy in contemporary art-historical, art-theoretical, scientific, religious and literary terms and in modern-day psychological terms? 

To answer this question, the research will be divided into three main parts, namely: (1) The form and expression of living presence responses in Seicento Italy, (2) The creation and psychology of liveliness in Seicento sculpture, and (3) Lively sculpture in the context of living presence responses. This division is based on the hypothesis that there is a relation between living presence responses as discussed in the first part and the topic of liveliness (It. Vivacità) expressed in Seicento theory and art as discussed in the second part. This relation is furthermore hypothesized to work in two directions: (1) the appearance of sculpture influences responses and (2) responses influence the appearance of sculpture. If these hypotheses prove to be right, it follows that living presence responses cannot be fully understood unless discussed in relation to the object that is actually responded to, namely, the work of art. These hypotheses will be tested explicitly in the third part where the conclusions of the first two parts will be confronted with each other.

The present research is part of the NWO-granted research project ‘Art, Agency and Living Presence in Early Modern Italy’, supervised by Prof. C. van Eck, and will be carried out at Leiden University. Professor Van Eck and Dr M. Delbeke (Dep. of Art History, Leiden University) will act as supervisors.

Curriculum Vitae

Since September 2006 PhD researcher, Leiden University.
October 2005  MPhil History of Fine Arts (300-1800), Free University Amsterdam, (cum laude).
November 2004  MSc Theoretical Psychology, Free University Amsterdam, (cum laude).
August 2003 BA Art History (300-1800), Free University Amsterdam.

Teaching activities

Bachelor course ‘ The Glory of Sculpture’ (2008-2009, second semester)

Publications

‘Het Timpaan van Egmond: Byzantijnse invloeden in de lage landen’, Kunstlicht 23 (2002) 3, pp. 39-42.

‘De Cappella Antamori in de San Girolamo della Carità te Rome: Over de betekenis van een laat barok Gesamtkunstwerk’, Kunstlicht 25 (2005) 4, pp. 8-13.

Michelangelo en de zoon van Laocoön: een aanvullingen op Louvre inv. 712’, Kunstlicht 26 (2006) 2/3, pp. 17-20.

‘Antieke sculptuur in prent: tussen reproductie en toe-eigening’ in: Beeld voor beeld, Klassieke sculptuur in prent, Amsterdam: Allard Pierson museum 2007, pp. 21-28.

‘Hoc opus exculpsit Io. Bologna. Andreas Andreanus Incisit: Andrea Andreani en de grafische reproductie van Giambologna’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 55 (2007) 1, pp. 14-39; English abstract pp. 99-102.