Layers of Meanings in Benjamin West’s Neoclassical Venus and Cupid
Venus and Cupid by Benjamin West
Join us for an in-person symposium on August 19 at 6 PM. This symposium is free and open to the public, and will take place in the Naos on Level 2. RSVP required.
Vivien Green Fryd, Professor Emerita in the History of Art and Architecture Department at Vanderbilt University, Ph.D, will share about American painter Benjamin West (1738-1820), including West’s Venus and Cupid (1765), part of our permanent collection.
ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM:
Benjamin West’s Venus and Cupid (1765) in the Parthenon’s Cowan Collection marks the first commission this Philadelphia Quaker received upon arriving in Italy to study art. This work, the first history painting West created in the academic tradition, which rated history painting as the most important subject, represents the mythological Venus, the goddess of love, with her son, Cupid. It also evokes to topos of the Madonna lactans, or the nursing Madonna, which had been a prevalent subject throughout the Italian Renaissance, which he studied while in Italy. West showed emotion and love between parent and child that had not existed until the 1760s, and hence this work joins that of others created by Euro-Americans in the U.S. colonies and abroad who similarly represented changing attitudes towards child-rearing, family relations, and the definition of childhood. West was at the forefront of establishing neoclassical subjects and styles as the premier manner of painting during the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
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ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Vivien Green Fryd, Professor Emerita in the History of Art and Architecture Department at Vanderbilt University, Ph.D. is the author of Art and Empire: The Politics of Ethnicity in the U.S. Capitol, 1815-1860 (1992); Art and the Crisis of Marriage: Georgia O’Keeffe and Edward Hopper (2003); and Against Our Will: Sexual Trauma in American Art Since 1970 (2019), which was awarded the 2022 Charles C. Eldredge Prize for distinguished scholarship in the field of American Art. At Vanderbilt, she taught courses about American art from the colonial period to the present, nineteenth-century European art, and Berlin Monuments and Memorials Since 1970.
SYMPOSIUM SPONSORS:
Centennial Park Conservancy
ADDITIONAL SPONSORS:
The Parthenon, part of Metro Parks & Recreation, would like to thank the following organizations that provide underwriting support for its exhibition and educational programming, including Symposia, through grants and corporate partnerships with Centennial Park Conservancy:
Archaeological Institute of America- Nashville Society, Amazon, the Sandra Schatten Foundation, HCA Healthcare Foundation, Tennessee Arts Commission, Hays Foundation, and Advance Financial Foundation
Individuals can support the Parthenon by making a donation or becoming a member of Centennial Park Conservancy. Learn more.
NEXT SYMPOSIUM:
Details coming soon.