GALLERY TALK – LANDSCAPE IN ART: FROM DELIGHT TO ALERT BY MARCY FREEDMAN: As part of the exhibition, Address: Earth in the Gallery at the Visual & Performing Arts Center, artist and art historian Marcy B Freedman will present a gallery talk, “Landscape in Art: From Delight to Alert,” from 6:30 to 8 p.m. This event will take place in Choir Room 108 at the Visual & Performing Arts Center, WCSU’s Westside Campus.

Freedman will examine the role of the natural world in works of art dating from the Renaissance to the present. She will discuss the ways in which the landscape was subordinate to the holy figures in religious paintings of the 15th and 16th centuries in Italy, where the Catholic Church was a dominant force in the world of art. Moving on to the 17th-century, Freedman will highlight those artists in the Protestant areas of northern Europe who were pioneers in the development of a tradition of landscape painting that impacted the art of the 19th-century Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. She will then discuss the Cubist and Expressionist artists of the early 20th-century, who found radical new ways of engaging with the natural world as they explored alternatives to naturalistic representation. Finally, Freedman will consider those Earth artists whose monumental outdoor projects brought attention to the environmental movement of the late 20th century. She will conclude with an homage to a number of contemporary artists – such as Olafur Eliasson and Maya Lin – who are using their art to alert us to the devastating effects of climate change upon our earth.

The Address: Earth Exhibition will be on view through December 4, 2022. The gallery will be open before and after the gallery talk and during regular gallery hours: Tues-Fri, noon to 4 p.m., and Sat-Sun, 1 to 4 p.m.