About the Lecture
This presentation will focus on how dress, textiles and material objects shaped ideas of sanctity, ethnicity, and otherness in religious art throughout the sixteenth century. Focusing on the figures of the magi who were said to originate from the East, the researcher examines how artists utilised clothing and accessories to interpret encounters with global goods, people, and cultures, into visual and theological narratives. Through case studies of Adoration scenes produced in the low countries, including works which now reside in Italy, the project questions how material culture mediated ideas of diversity and ethnicity at the dawn of globalisation.
About the Speaker
Samantha Leanne Smith is an art and idea historian of early modern Europe, focusing on visual culture in Italy and the Netherlands. She uses interdisciplinary methods – art history, theology, material religion, and history of science – to explore how images shaped epistemologies and experience in the 16th–17th centuries. Samantha has many years of experience as a researcher and lecturer at the University of Oslo, and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oslo.
Interested in attending?
Please register, preferably the day before the lecture: https://nettskjema.no/a/romeseminar