Art as a Living Presence
‘Most events are unsayable, occur in a space that no word has ever penetrated, and most unsayable of all are works of art, mysterious existences whose life endures alongside ours, which passes away’.
– Rainer Maria Rilke
Much of the art from our past not only tells us of a world we have forgotten, but also guides us to places in ourselves where we discover more of who and what we are, and might become. While studies reveal that we spend less than 20 seconds in front of one work of art before moving on to the next, we are still drawn magnetically to art, intuitively sensing there is something more there. If we know how to look, and what we are looking at, a work of art can recover much of what lies beneath the surface of our existence, and inform both our personal insights and understanding and more widely alter our perceptions.
The wonder-filled images of the Renaissance are some of the most beautiful ever created, and words often fail to express the awe and mystery they evoke. Yet there they are, like long-forgotten friends, waiting patiently for a passer-by to notice them with the right eyes.
This presentation will consider the potency which works of art have, to be understood simultaneously on a number of different levels – the historical, mythological, philosophical and sacred – Mary will also draw on her personal insights in relation to a sacred work of art by Leonardo da Vinci, weaving her own encounters with this image into a broader context.
Speaker Mary Attwood is an art historian, author and mentor with a lifelong interest in the ways in which our perceptions of art can awaken us to a deeper, embodied dimension of being which we have lost in our post-modern age. She holds a BA (hons) in the History of Art from London University, where she studied Italian late medieval and renaissance art and architecture, and an MA with distinction in Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred.
Image: ‘The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne’ (detail), Louvre, Paris
Tickets: £12 for an invitation on Zoom. Book using the link below.