Dr. William E. Wallace
September 26, 2013
Topic: The Genius of Michelangelo: Sistine Chapel…500 Years
Who: Dr. William E. Wallace
When: September 26 at 5:30 pm
Where: Room S150, Lamar Dodd School of Art
We have just celebrated the 500th anniversary of the unveiling of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling. If any work of art demonstrates artistic genius, it is this well-known masterpiece. No matter how familiar the images, no matter the trials of that crowded space, few visitors have not felt awe standing under this titanic achievement. Like a handful of timeless monuments – the pyramids, the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China among them -- the Sistine never fails to astonish us. Professor William E. Wallace, a world-renowned authority on Michelangelo, will illuminate this masterpiece and help you see it with fresh eyes.
Professor Wallace is the Barbara Murphy Bryant Distinguished Professor of Art History at Washington University in St. Louis. He is an internationally recognized authority on the Renaissance artist, architect and poet, Michelangelo Buonarroti. Professor Wallace has published extensively on Renaissance art: in addition to more than eighty articles and essays (including two short works of fiction), he is the author or editor of seven different books on Michelangelo, including the award winning, Michelangelo: The Complete Sculpture, Painting and Architecture (1998), Michelangelo at San Lorenzo: The Genius as Entrepreneur (1994), and most recently, Discovering Michelangelo (New York, Rizzoli, 2012).
Image: Michelangelo Buonarroti, Sistine Chapel ceiling fresco: Creation of Sun, Moon and Planets, 1508-1512, Vatican