Symposium: The Italians. Three Centuries of Italian Art

The Italians exhibition has aroused a passionate response from critics, the public and experts alike, ranging from enthusiasm to condemnation and litigious threats. Symposium: The Italians. Three Centuries of Italian Art will bring together an unparalleled array of international and local art specialists to comment on the wider issues raised by the exhibition and individual works of art to be presented in Melbourne.

Topics and questions to be discussed include:

· What is an original work of art?

· Blockbuster/shockbuster - the changing world of international loan exhibitions.

· Should priceless works of art travel?

· Should conservators intervene in old master painting?

· How were these works of art used? Where did they hang? Who looked at them?

· The regional nature of Italian art: Naples, Genoa, Venice, Bolgona, Florence, Rome

· Art forgery, and the value of the ‘original’ in the Baroque

· Homoeroticism and male love in Renaissance portraiture

· Emotion and expression in Baroque portraiture and discussions of the imagery of rape, witchcraft, torture, martyrdom, devotion, pathos, virtue, sacrifice, marriage, informality and luxury.

Distinguished local and international speakers include:

Professor Emeritus Richard Spear, Oberlin College, Ohio (author of ground-breaking studies of Caravaggio, Domenichino and Guido Reni).

Professor Mauro Lucco, University of Bologna (one of the world’s foremost authorities on Venetian Renaissance art and organiser of recent international exhibitions on Lorenzo Lotto and Dosso Dossi)

Among local authorities Professor Jaynie Anderson, University of Melbourne (Venetian Renaissance art), Dr Gerard Vaughan, National Gallery of Victoria (Director of the NGV and a leading scholar on eighteenth century art and the antique), Associate Professor Robert Gaston (Mannerist Art) and Associate Professor David Marshall (Landscape Painting).

The Symposium: The Italians. Three Centuries of Italian Art, is organised by the Membership of the Ian Potter Museum of Art in conjunction with the Art History Program of the School of Fine Arts, Classical Studies and Archaeology at the University of Melbourne, the Melbourne Museum, and the Italian Institute of Culture, Melbourne. To be held on Friday, August 9 – Sunday, August 11 between 9.00am – 5.00pm at Theatre A, Elisabeth Murdoch Building, The University of Melbourne. Enquiries and Bookings: Heather Bannerman, School of Fine Arts, Classical Studies and Archaeology, The University of Melbourne.