Early Modern Naples: Aesthetics of Violence?

Description

How was an aesthetics of violence constructed in early modern Naples? The seventeenth century marked a transformative and turbulent chapter in the city’s history. A Spanish territory and the second largest city in early modern Europe, Naples endured volcanic eruption, popular rebellion, and plague outbreak. Contemporary paintings chronicled these explosions of manmade and natural disaster. Violent episodes also took the form of legal expressions, which impacted the sensory environment of the city. A painting by an anonymous Neapolitan artist depicts the sights and sounds of the square outside the Tribunale della Vicaria, the main civil and criminal law court in Naples, and the site of public torture and execution. The painting stages the intersection of everyday life with extreme violence, and the collision of social classes. It offers not a literal depiction of the everyday, but an illusion of the everyday, raising the problem of the lived experiences of violence in the city. Simultaneously, the painting functions as a curiosity, with its “catalogue” of actions, activities, and miniaturized figures. This lecture will place the Vicaria painting in dialogue with contemporary images of natural disaster and human conflict. It will question the extent to which the painting articulates an aesthetics of violence, suggesting instead that it plays visual games with the viewer that culminate in a violence of aesthetics.

Period	15 Sept 2022
Event title	Æstetisk Seminar: Efterår 2022
Event type	Seminar
Location	Aarhus, DenmarkShow on map
Degree of Recognition	Local